One Wish
by K Nighthawk
Summary: Kagome wishes that she had never come to the past. It's a different past, present, and future, and Kagome's going to to learn that some souls always stay together. But can she remember what they've lost before their devastating past becomes their future?
1. Prelude: One Wish

AN: A one shot I thought up after reading happy endings. What happens when it's not a happy ending? After some thought, I've started on a follow-up. But this can stand alone as well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Inu-Yasha. That's why it's called fan fiction.

**Prologue: One Wish**

_"He was my North, my South, my East and West,  
My working week and my Sunday rest,  
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;  
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong."_

- W.H. Auden, 'Funeral Blues'

**-- Sengoku Jidai --**

She looked into the completed Shikon no Tama. One little pink stone. Had it been worth it? All their pains, troubles, losses. Why had they done this? Miroku and his revenge for his father and grandfather, to seal the hole in his hand that would someday swallow him.

**- Flashback -**

_"Houshi-sama!" Sango cried._

_Miroku strained as his kazaana grew wider, sucking in the horde of demons and wasps surrounding the pair. "Run, Sango. I don't want you to see this."_

_"__I'm not leaving. Close the kazaana, I can fight them off."_

_"__It's too late, Sango," he said. "Even if I closed it now, it would still swallow me. And I don't want it to take you as well."_

_Too late, all those words left unspoken, plans left unfinished._

_Sango nodded, tears in her eyes. "Houshi-sama, I – "_

_"Don't say it, Sango. Promise me you'll find some other letch of a man who deserves you," he said, trying to smile._

_"I make no promises I have no intention of keeping, Miroku." She kissed his cheek and ran. Behind her, demons screamed and then there was silence. She continued running, tears streaking freely down her face._

**- End Flashback -**

Miroku was gone now, finally swallowed by kazaana. He had lived each day as if it might be his last and that he wanted only the good to remember in the afterlife.

Was his death worth this stupid glowing ball in her hand? Was the ball worth everything they had gone through? The taijiya village destroyed, all its inhabitants slain, some later than others.

**- Flashback -**

"_I smell blood," Inu-Yasha said as they ran through the forest towards the sound of battle. "It's not just demon blood either."_

"_Sango-chan was going after Kohaku!"_

"_Shit, when's she going to learn he's dead, only a puppet," he said, picking up his pace._

_They ran silently, Inu-Yasha cursing in his head over the foolish taijiya, Kagome worried about her friend._

_There were only two bodies at the battlefield. Sango lay on her side, torn up by her own brother's weapon and Kagura's wind attacks. Kohaku was a decaying body, the shard keeping him alive gone with the wind user._

_"__No!" Kagome screamed, running to the fallen taijiya, cradling the girl's head in her lap._

"_It's too late, Kagome-chan," Sango's quiet voice said. "I should have listened to Inu-Yasha. My brother has been gone since the destruction of the village, and I was too blind to see that."_

"_Shush, Sango-chan, you need rest, you're going to get better," Kagome said, trying to wash the blood off the taijiya's body. Inu-Yasha grabbed her shoulder. She looked up into sad amber eyes. "She is!" she said angrily. "I'm not going to lose anybody else!"_

"_There's nothing you can do, Kagome-chan," Sango said, her voice weakening. "I've been dead since Naraku made Kohaku attack me the first-" the taijiya's voice trailed off. Kagome wept into the dying girl's chest._

**- End Flashback -**

It was because of this jewel that so many had been hurt, been killed. Such a tiny thing to bring out the best and worst in everybody.

If only she had never gone into the well house after Buyo, if she had never been attacked by that demon and dragged into the past, never run to the Goshinboku and found the boy. If only…

"Inu-Yasha," she whispered.

**- Flashback -**

_Kagome raised her head painfully from where she had been thrown by the puppet. Inu-Yasha was wrapped in its many tentacles and screaming in pain. She slowly sat up, picking up her bow and drawing an arrow._

_She pulled back and let the arrow fly. She drew another before it hit. There was no need to, the first arrow had pierced the baboon mask and broken the puppet. Inu-Yasha fell to the ground soundlessly._

"_No." He had survived tougher battles than this; a puppet couldn't kill the powerful hanyou. She crawled over to him. "Inu-Yasha?"_

_He twitched, but said nothing. Blood and miasma covered him, his ears were shredded, it looked like every bone in his body was broken._

"_Go home, Kagome," he said so faintly that she could barely hear him. "You're just going to get yourself killed like the rest of us."_

"_It's all my fault," she said in a voice choked up by tears. "If I had never come here with the Shikon no Tama none of this would ever had happened. Everything would still be fine, Sango, her village, Miroku, Shippo, his parents…" she started coughing._

_He tried moving his hand, but it wouldn't obey him. "Then I never would have met you," he said, his amber eyes glazing with pain._

"_Inu-Yasha?"_

_His eyes closed._

"_Inu-Yasha?"_

_The slight movement of his breathing under her hands stopped._

"_INUYASHA!"_

**- End Flashback -**

"I never would have met you, either," she said. "But you still would have been alive at least."

But that wasn't right either, was it? Kikyo had bound him to the Goshinboku Tree until someone with enough power came along to release him. Those fifty years, he might as well have been dead.

Kikyo. Her previous incarnation, the woman who had wanted to drag the hanyou to hell with her, the miko who had had the duty of protecting the Shikon no Tama. "Some job she did of it," Kagome said bitterly.

**- Flashback -**

"_So the copy has managed to get all her friends killed, no one left to protect her," the miko hissed to the girl bound to the tree by the soul stealers._

_Kagome's face paled. "I didn't want any of this, I didn't want things to turn out this way – "_

_"I don't care what you want," Kikyo cut her off. "Because of you, all your friends lay dead. Repay them by helping me kill Naraku. Then I will kill you and you will no longer have the guilt of their deaths upon your head."_

_Kagome nodded. Death would end the pain._

**- End Flashback -**

But things hadn't worked out that way. The fight with Naraku that they had all pushed towards had brought no release to the hurt girl. The monster had destroyed what he thought was the greater threat- Kikyo- and left Kagome for his incarnations to kill. He hadn't counted on the lessons Kikyo had given the girl to harness and control her miko powers. It was a mistake he would not live to regret.

Kagome cried softly. "It's all your fault," she told the glittering jewel in her hands. "If you had just never shown up, they would still be alive, still have their families, be happy. But you ruined it all."

Or was it her? She was the one who had brought the jewel back to the past. She was the one who had broken it. She was the one who could detect the shards and led them into battles they weren't prepared for.

She looked at the jewel. One wish and everything would be fixed, Midoriko freed from her centuries long battle with the demons, the youkai left to their own devices without the aid of shards to kill, evil and good returned to their balance. One wish.

One wish and she could have her friends back as if they were never gone.

Or was that selfish?

It was all because of her coming to the past and bringing the jewel that they were dead.

She clasped the jewel to her chest, eyes closed, knowing what she had to do. How to make everything right.

"I wish I had never come to Sengoku Jidai."

And the world around her vanished.


	2. One: A New Beginning

AN: Some information about the story I think may be important to keep in mind:

1. This story is not AU, so any incarnations of Naraku and their magic (Kagura, Kanna and her mirror, etc.) will not be here, nor will Kikyo. Nothing personal, I'm just trying to write this as if what happens in the series didn't happen, which means Naraku doesn't have the power of the Shikon shards to create incarnations.

2. Mortals from the Sengoku Jidai (Sango, Miroku, etc.) will be reincarnated with different names (I firmly do not believe in coincidences of sharing a name with a former incarnation, even if it does make things easier), but to make things simpler, their genders will remain the same, and their habits will primarily be the same (though these souls have had five hundred years to mature and will not be entirely like their Sengoku Jidai counterparts). If you have any problems figuring out who is who, just ask (press the magic review button grins) and I'll stick up a list later on.

3. Any youkai from the Sengoku Jidai (Sesshoumaru, Kouga, Inu-Yasha, Shippo, etc.) will likely be different from who they are in the series, since, after all, they are five hundred years more experienced (though perhaps not wiser) than their past selves. (With the notable exception of Inu-Yasha, who's going to be stuck to the Goshinboku for most of those years. He could use the long nap, he's awfully cranky, ne?)

4. This is going to be considerably longer than any other story I have ever written, and apologies in advance for any confusion, as I'm making this up as I go along. Please point out any plot holes and other mistakes I may make.

And now that that's done with, on with the story!

**Chapter One: A New Beginning**

"_God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of his own devising which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players, to being involved in an obscure and complex version of poker in a pitch-black room, with blank cards for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules and who smiles all the time."_

- Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, Good Omens

**-- June 17, Tokyo, Japan --**

Kagome had been fighting a migraine all day. Fighting it never helped, indeed, it often worsened the effect, and today was no different. She had wandered through school and the house heavily dosed with painkillers, deadening her senses enough to make her seem drunk, and now all she wanted to do was go to sleep. Reality, she knew, had different plans in the form of tests and annoying little brothers. And the strange tugging sensation she had had all day didn't look like it was going to end anytime soon. What a marvelous birthday this turned out to be, she thought to herself.

"Come on, sis, help me find Buyo!" Souta said. "I think I saw him go into the well house. And I don't want to go in there. Gramps will yell at me."

Kagome rubbed her forehead, trying to keep control of her deteriorating temper. "And he won't yell at me?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at the boy. "No, Souta, I have to study for this math test. It's important. Go find him yourself," Her attention returned to the book in front of her.

"Kagome," he whined. "You study too much. It's your birthday; you should be outside, sunning or something. And helping me find Buyo. He's your stupid cat."

"No. If you saw the cat in the well house, you can go get him from there. There's no such thing as a haunted well house." She forced her brother out of the room and closed the door behind him, locking it.

He banged on the door for a bit, then there was the sound of footsteps going down the stairs and the slam of the front door. Kagome sat back down at her desk. "I hate math. Stupid tests, stupid Souta. I need to study or I'm going to fail."

Looking at the textbook, the writing that had once been triangles and formula blurred together as her headache increased, and she instinctively curled up, trying to escape the pain. Underneath her hand, one side of her stomach began to grow hot, and she felt warm liquid running through her shirt onto her fingers. Trying to ignore the pain in her head, she opened her eyes to look at her fingers. She was bleeding.

"What in the world?" She pulled her shirt up. A red gash had appeared across her right side and was bleeding. As she watched incredulously, it began to glow with an eerie pink-white light and then the cut suddenly disappeared, with only a small star-shaped scar and still wet blood left. "What was that? Did I fall asleep studying and get into a dream?"

:: _You foolish girl._ ::

Her head snapped up from looking at the strange scar to look around the room. "Who's there?"

_:: It might have been an unselfish wish, Kagome, but you have royally screwed up. You were **supposed **to go back. And now everything is different. Perhaps it is not all for the worse, but everything you changed, for better or worse, has been removed and history changed yet again. Do not screw up this time. Repetition of previous mistakes will only get you so far. ::_

Kagome covered her ears with her hands and closed her eyes. "I'm going insane. First I start bleeding without ever getting hit, then the wound glows, then it heals, and now voices. Next come the hallucinations."

_:: Shut up, open your eyes, and listen to me, little girl! I don't have time for your foolishness::_

Kagome opened her eyes. There was that funny light again, this time hovering over her open textbook. If she stared long enough, she could almost make out eyes glaring at her. "Yup, there's the hallucinations. I'm certifiably mad now."

She could hear it sigh. :: _Stupid human. I had hoped you would retain some of your maturity, but obviously everything has returned to step one. I will send someone over to watch out for you. Multiple someones, but those will show up as the time calls for it. So when the ball starts rolling, you will have some form of protection. Just try not to get into too much trouble. ::_

Kagome was pretty sure she was either insane or dead. Why else would she be listening to a strange bright light that kept babbling on about protection and wishes and changes?

:: I am not allowed to interfere more than I already have, thanks to that stupid wish. Don't show anyone that scar, either. The right, or wrong, person sees that scar, they will figure out exactly what happened and you'll be dead before anyone can stop them. ::

Kagome did the only sensible thing she could think of. She fainted, her head falling towards the math book.

_:: I can't stand mortals. Always fainting on me_. :: The light disappeared.


	3. Two: Telephone Conversations

**Chapter Two: Telephone Conversations**

_Well life has a funny way of sneaking up on you  
When you think everything's okay and everything's going right  
And life has a funny way of helping you out when  
You think everything's gone wrong and everything blows up  
In your face_

- "Ironic" (Alanis Morrisette)

**--Five years later, May 9, Tokyo, Japan --**

A tall girl with blue-black hair and cobalt eyes sat in a bar and watched the news as she waited for her professor to call her to tell her that she had received the test she had left with her secretary. She stared into her teacup and sighed. She had had to make up another exam, yet again spending too much time at her job at the hospital, and not paying enough attention to the time. To make things worse, her apartment lease couldn't be renewed, and she had had to spend what little free time she had packing her belongings away into storage. She hadn't had time to sleep in a week, and it was beginning to show.

" -Police are still baffled as to the reason behind a fire in a local apartment complex. They received a hone call earlier today concerning- "

She glanced up. The television showed a picture of firefighters hosing down a burning building. The building looked very familiar. She cursed loudly, earning glares from other patrons, and started digging through the brown backpack at her feet. Pulling a cell phone out, she quickly dialed a number from memory.

Someone picked up after one ring, "Moshi moshi," a cheerful young soprano said.

"Hey, Kags." The woman looked worriedly at the television. Men in yellow coats held hoses shooting water the five-story building as the announcer continued to go on about how long the fire had been going.

"Hi Mischa!"

"You near a television? It's important." Sharp eyes took in the damage to the building.

"Sure am! What's on that's so important?"

"The news. There's a fire in one of buildings at Sunrise Apartments." She'd seen plenty of fires before. The damage wasn't right for only being a fire. The fire was just a result of what had really happened. Electronics caught fire easily, but they still needed a spark to burn.

"Sunrise Apartments? Isn't that where you're staying?" She could hear the sound of the television being turned on.

From what she could tell from the picture, the damage was centered on the part of the building where she lived. "It's even my building. And from the looks of it, my room doesn't exist anymore."

"That's... really bad." The other girl's voice didn't sound quite so cheerful.

"I'm rather glad Yukoshira-san refused to let me rent for another year. I've moved most of my stuff into storage." Mischa wondered what had really caused the building's partial collapse.

"You still had another week before moving in to the shrine until you found another apartment. I take it you called to check and see if you could move in earlier that we originally planned?"

"Yes," she said. "I do not like to impose, but- "

"You've got nowhere else to go besides that farm in Niigata and that's absolutely out of the question."

She sighed. She hadn't been back there in seven years, and it was unlikely she would be returning there anytime soon. "Mother would like it, but... no, I cannot go there."

"Oh, that reminds me! Aunt Mikomi called the other day and talked mom into taking Souta to Hokkaido for the summer. Which is rather unusual. She loves Tokyo in summer. I think something very strange is going on."

There was a long silence as Mischa pondered the information. Her mother was rather infamous in certain crowds for her uncannily accurate predictions. But to actually move on them- things had begun. And her mother was leaving her student alone to deal with it. Mischa wasn't certain she agreed. But her mother always did seem to not be there when she was most needed. Shaking her head angrily, dropping that line of thought, she replied, "It is possible. Mother's intuition concerning danger is uncanny. And getting your mother and brother out of the line of fire is step one in keeping others safe."

"So why didn't I go with them?"

"Kags, you are many things, but stupid usually is not one of them. You are an adult and are supposed to be living your own life now. Not to mention, you are probably the one who must stop whatever danger Mother feels is coming." Mischa stood, downing the rest of her sake in one gulp.

"Mischa, you're the one who attracts trouble, not me. I'm always the one bailing you out."

She scoffed as she stood up from the barstool, tossing a tip on the counter before reaching down and swinging her bag over her shoulder. "Believe what you want. My apartment may have been the first attack." Mischa had spent years preventing youkai, obsessed with making a name by killing a powerful miko, from reaching her younger cousin. Something else was going on now, though.

"Proof positive it's you getting into trouble, not me. Or else that you're paranoid."

"This is not paranoia. If it were not for the fact I was making up yet another test, I would have been home, finishing the last of my packing." She silently blessed the long hours she spent at the hospital. She was Kagome's only guard now. Mischa's death, or disappearance, would make it easy for Kagome to be grabbed.

"Let's not fight about this now, please, Mi-chan? You know I like my illusions of normality."

Mischa was surprised at the nickname. Her cousin only called her that when she was feeling stressed out or was upset. She sighed, letting the other girl win the argument for the time being. "You only delay the inevitable. Those illusions are about to come crashing down all around you, Kagome. I must go, I am expecting another call." She left the bar and started walking down the road.

"Your professor, right? Good luck."

"Thanks." She hit the end button. The phone rang immediately. Looking at the number, she sighed and answered. "Moshi moshi."

An elderly woman's voice came over the line. -- "Meirin-san, I got your envelope. This becomes a habit. I know you are dedicated to your work, but kindly recall that unless you pass this course, you will not receive the degree that allows it to be possible." --

"My apologies, Takani-sensei. I have been trying, but with my internship at the clinic- "

"Yes, yes, I know. I will try and have this ready for you before you finish with your other finals."

"Thank you for being so understanding, Takani-sensei." A slight tingle on her senses gave her a feeling of being watched. Inhaling deeply, all she picked up were the people passing her and the rain that would shortly be falling. There was nothing hostile nearby, at least aimed at her.

"Anything else we need to talk about?"

"Would you know who to get a change of address form from? The apartment I had been planning on staying in just made the news for being in a fire." She quickened her pace, hoping to beat the rain to the library.

A shocked gasp on the other side of the line. "That is horrible! How did it happen? Is anybody hurt? Where will you stay in the meantime?"

"I do not know much about it. I just recognized the building while someone was channel surfing to find a good show on television. The news channel will have more information than I. I will be staying with my cousin Higurashi Kagome in the meantime. You might know of her, she's a pre-med student at the university."

She was definitely being followed. And the water in the air was destroying her sense of smell, so she couldn't tell who- or what- was following her.

"Ah, another doctor in the making. Does she want to go into veterinary medicine like you?"

"No, she wants to do 'real' work. In other words, be a paramedic."

She turned into the first door she came to. It was a clothing store. She quickly moved to the wall and started browsing through a rack. Would whoever was following her wait outside, leave, or follow her inside?

"There is nothing wrong with that, Meirin-san."

"No, there is not," Mischa agreed. She finally positioned herself so that anyone coming in wouldn't see her right away, but she would be able to see them if she looked through the rack.

"I am sorry, I would love to continue this conversation, but I have a staff meeting to go to."

"I did not mean to take up so much of your time, Takani-sensei. I will try to get out of work earlier on test days."

The bells on the store's entrance jingled. Mischa peeked through the clothes, trying to see who it was.

"You do that, Meirin-san." The line went dead.

Mischa put the phone back in her bag, still trying to catch sight of the new customer.

His back was to her as he spoke quietly to the woman at the counter. Luxurious long red locks were tied up in a high ponytail and he looked to top six feet. Sensing eyes on him, he turned around. Amethyst eyes looked directly into hers.

She backed up a step. Her sense of smell was working just fine now. She didn't have time to deal with inquisitive youkai.

He looked puzzled for a moment, and then turned and left the store.

Thanking the gods for her good luck- though worried that they thought she needed it- she rushed out the door and down the street, hands over her head as the rain came down in sheets. She needed to study, preferably someplace quiet, like the library. She had wasted too much time downtown already.

Across the street, the red-haired young man leaned nonchalantly against a lamppost, unperturbed by the rain beating down on him. His eyes followed the brown-clad young woman until she disappeared entirely from sight, and then he turned and walked in the opposite direction, his face a study in confusion.

**-----**

Mischa couldn't concentrate on the textbook and notes in front of her. Her mind was swirling with thoughts about the strange redhead who had popped out of nowhere to follow her, only to stop just as suddenly. It made no sense.

She was not being paranoid, no matter what Kagome said. She growled in frustration. The man across from her glared and she blushed. Deciding that she was getting nothing done, she gathered her things and placed them back in her backpack.

She started the long walk to the Sunset Shrine. It was, unfortunately, still raining.

She worried about what was going to happen. Her mother would be no help, tied to the Niigata farm as she was, and there were few people she trusted and they had enough problems of their own right now without her calling them in to help keep an eye out for trouble that may not yet happen.

It was not until she was walking up the steps to the shrine that a thought came to her. He'd be madder than hell with the request, but the worse he could do was say no.

Once she was safely inside the house, she pulled out an address book and cell phone, and hoped he hadn't changed his number.

No one answered the other line the first three times, nor did his answering machine kick on. On the fourth try, a grumpy male voice answered. "What the hell do you want, Shan?"

She looked startled for a second, then recalled that Caller ID came with everything these days. She wondered what his earlier refusals to answer meant. "That is no way to greet an old friend."

"You're not my friend and I'll greet you any way I like."

She rolled her eyes. The world would end the day he was polite. "Do you recall the favor you owe me?"

"Oh hell no, Shan. You can stay with somebody else."

Why was she not surprised he had heard about her apartment? "That was not my request. I already have lodging. Except- " she paused, wondering how to phrase the request for help.

"Except what?" He asked, annoyed.

"I will be staying with my ward. Someone is after her, and I believe the destruction of my apartment may have been to get me out of the way. They are smart enough to know they must get rid of me before they even have a chance to get her."

"A babysitter? You're moving up in the world. Last I heard, you were the one being looked after," he said, partially amused.

"I do not baby-sit her. I am something of a stunt double. You know I would not ask for help if it were not important."

He sighed. "What is it you want help with?"

He was giving in faster than she had thought possible. Was he up to something or just trying to keep her from yelling in his ear again? "I must look into who is after her. I would like you to watch her."

"You're kidding, right? You're cashing in on saving my life to make me a babysitter? Either you're pulling my leg or this girl means more to you than you're letting on." Looks like he wasn't giving in, just trying to get more information.

Mischa wondered how much she should share over the phone. "She is my cousin," she finally said.

"Your family can watch out for themselves, they don't need- " He broke off. "She's a cousin on your mother's side." It wasn't a question.

She smirked halfheartedly. "You see my problem."

"Shit. Tell me everything you know."

That was surprising. She had expected him to take longer to capitulate. "Not on the phone."

"You're really playing it cautious, aren't you? I guess that's to be expected. Where and when?"

"Goshinboku. As soon as possible."

There was a long silence on the other side of the line.

"You still there?" She should have known better than to name the God Tree as their meeting place, but it was the first place that came to mind.

What was left of his amusement and understanding was gone as he said tight voice, "You owe me one hell of an explanation when I get there."

She winced. "I know. Thank you."

"Once whatever it is you're doing is over, I don't want you calling me again."

Looked like he wasn't going to forgive her the meeting place anytime soon. "I have not spoken to you in years. Don't push me away. I haven't so many friends I can afford to lose one."

"Fuck off. With friends like you, who needs enemies?" The anger was gone from his voice, but his voice didn't entirely disguise the bitterness in the question.

She smirked. Ah, the friendly insulting banter of old friends. Why had she never called him earlier? "I miss you too."

His retort would have left more delicate girls blushing, but she had heard worse, had said worse.

"That's not really physically possible, you know."

"Feh." He hung up.

Meirin Mischando stared gloomily out the window and watched the rain fall steadily on the shrine's courtyard. There were more storms coming.


	4. Three: Insights

AN: A word of warning. Pay attention to the time and place given at the beginning of each section. It will help keep track of what's happened when, and give a slight clue as to who the speaker will be if I don't mention names early enough. I'd also like to point out that since this takes place in Japan, names are given in Japanese fashion- family name first, given name second.

**Chapter Three: Insights**

_"I have no trouble with my enemies. I can take care of my enemies all right. But my damn friends... They're the ones that keep me walking the floor nights!"_

- Warren G. Harding

**-- May 13, Tokyo, Japan --**

Higurashi Kagome wasn't stupid. She knew something was going. It seemed as if everyone else in her family knew what was going on and had forgotten to tell her. Except Mischa, who played her cards close and was purposefully keeping her in the dark.

Mischa was a mystery. Twenty-five years old, Meirin Mischando looked sixteen on a good day. On bad days, she got offered the children's menu. And at times, Mischa even acted like a child and not like the graduate student at a prominent Tokyo medical school that she was. And at other times, she acted like she was hundreds of years old, with all the burdens of the world on her shoulders. It was as if two people warred for control of the woman and Kagome couldn't completely understand what was going on.

So many strange things surrounded her cousin. Mischa often expressed a desire for the open lands of her old home and yet she insisted on staying in Tokyo, even during summer vacation. She hid her figure- admittedly, not that of a twenty-five year old, but still attractive enough- under unflattering loose brown clothes. Kagome had managed to get her cousin into different colors, even if they were only gray and white. Nor would Mischa explain why she only wore neutral colors. She would look gorgeous in red, if only she gave it a try, Kagome knew and had told her many times. Kagome had been ignored each time.

And then the bar fights. Mischa didn't even drink. So why was it that whenever Kagome, Yuka, and Ayumi would go out for a night on the town and they ended up in a bar, Mischa would be there? She was never alone- she would always be arguing with someone. And it was a different person each time. Sometimes the other would back down and leave, sometimes Mischa ended up punching him and tossing him out the door. And when Kagome was coherent enough to use her miko powers, he was always youkai. What was her cousin getting into?

Mischa had spent the past few days torn between studying her textbooks- it was, after all, finals week- and trying to unobtrusively watch her younger cousin. Kagome had caught Mischa following her twice, had sensed her nearby dozens of times throughout the day, and she knew there were plenty other times she hadn't caught her cousin watching. It was as if she thought Kagome would disappear if she didn't keep an eye on her.

Kagome thought it was the explosion at Mischa's apartment that had caused this latest case of rampant paranoia on Mischa's part. And Kagome couldn't blame her- the timing was too perfect, with Souta and her mother gone on holiday.

But today Mischa had disappeared. She hadn't been at the shrine when Kagome had woken that morning- though Kagome faintly recalled hearing the shower running- and a note on the inside of the front door asking Kagome not to look for her left Kagome worrying.

Maybe it was Mischa's paranoia rubbing off on her, but being told not to look for her cousin meant that she was probably off getting into yet more trouble and that Kagome needed to find her as soon as possible.

"Excuse me, miss," a voice interrupted her thoughts.

She fell backwards from the window, startled, landing solidly on her bottom. "Ouch," she murmured and looked up to see who had spoken.

She was pretty sure if she hadn't already been sitting down, she would've fallen over. Gorgeous didn't even begin to describe him. She couldn't tell how tall he was from her angle, but he seemed taller than normal. Long dark red hair was tied back in a low ponytail, and long bangs partially covered purple eyes sparkling with amusement as he watched her try to remember how to breath.

"Apologies, miss, I didn't mean to startle you." He offered her a hand to help her up.

She blinked confusedly up at him. Was he actually talking to her?

"I just came over to tell you the library is closing soon."

He worked here? Her eyes flickered to the nametag that hung obviously from his shirt. Shimura Shinichi. Odd. She remembered Shimura-san as being an elderly fellow with a stutter around pretty young girls.

"Miss? Are you all right?" She realized she was still sitting down and he was still holding his hand out.

She shook her head, trying to get the odd sense of wrongness out. "Oh, yes, I'm not hurt. Sorry, I must've knocked my brains loose, falling over like that." She took his hand and let him pull her up.

"You might want to get back to the shrine before the rain starts back up, miss."

But what about Mischa? There was no sign of the young woman in any of her usual haunts, nor was she anywhere near Kagome. But then, she hadn't looked at the shrine. Mischa disliked staying on the grounds longer than necessary, and was only there if Kagome was or if she needed to crash for the night. 'It is the last place I would look for her,' Kagome reasoned.

"I suppose I should," she said, picking her bag up from where it lay by the window. "And you should probably get back to work, Shimura-san."

He flashed her a brilliant smile that almost made her fall over again. "Only too true. I've still got other people to kick out." He winked and moved on to an elderly gentleman reading the newspaper.

Kagome left the library, shooting one backwards glance to the gorgeous redhead, still chatting with the man with the newspaper.

She was halfway down the street on her bicycle before realizing he had said shrine, not home. And that the library wasn't closing for another five hours.

**-----**

Kagome's miko powers warned her of youki coming from somewhere above her on the shrine grounds. She snorted. "What's the last place to find a hanyou, Kagome? Holy ground. So where would Mischa hide if she knew you were going to be out for the day? Stupid," she muttered to herself as she made her way up the stairs. mumbling curses at the awkwardness of the bicycle, she noticed that the demon presence she felt had split into two.

Frowning, she consciously tapped into her power and sought out their energies. There was the familiar swirl of silver and brown that meant Mischa, and the pattern told her that Mischa was still as nervous as she had been the past few days. So everything was as normal as it ever was with her. But near her was someone else. The aura reminded her of a fire- swirls of different shades of red, weaving a pattern that told her that whoever he was, he was angry.

Odd that he was angry and Mischa was paying it no mind. Then again, Kagome thought, not really. Mischa paid very little mind to anyone.

Kagome reached the top of the stairs. Whatever she had expected, it certainly wasn't the sight she was now looking at. She stared with amazement as Mischa sat quietly listening to- or else completely ignoring- a handsome young man she had never seen before yell at the top of his lungs about idiot promises, stupid puppies, and how he didn't have time for 'this shit.' He stopped mid-rant to look over in Kagome's direction, and continued on in too low a voice for her to overhear.

Kagome was confused. He was pissed as hell, was obviously a half-demon like Mischa, and yet had made no move to attack her, besides yelling at her. Demons always were after the young wolf hanyou to _kill_ her, not _yell_ at her. Maybe because they were both hanyou... It didn't even sound like he was mad specifically at Mischa, more like the standard venting she did about calculus.

She wondered what his presence here meant, and who he was to her cousin. Mischa wasn't one to calmly listen to someone yelling at her, yet she hadn't walked away from the rant yet. It was possible he was from Niigata, but he didn't feel like a wolf.

She walked over to the two, noticing as she made her way closer that they were dropping their voices quieter with each step she took. And what was that about? Secret plans? Not this time. Especially not this time- Kagome knew Mischa's paranoia-induced stalking had something to do with this, and Kagome wasn't about to let Mischa continue it without an explanation.

"Any reason for hiding away here, Mischa?" She asked, plopping down next to her cousin. A flash of shock ran quickly through Mischa's eyes and just as quickly disappeared. Kagome looked over at her cousin in puzzlement.

Mischa had her back rested against the Goshinboku, knees to her chest and arms wrapped loosely around her legs. Her hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. Kagome's fingers itched to take a brush to it. It often seemed that she was the older, more mature, more knowledgeable cousin, and not Mischa. At least when it came to anything concerning human society. Mischa had grown up with youkai and had different priorities.

Which still didn't explain the brown polo and khakis. But Mischa was Mischa, and Kagome figured that she'd get the taciturn hanyou to explain herself sooner or later. More likely later. She turned her attention to the young man.

The stranger sat cross-legged across from her, returning her gaze. Shoulder-length pale blonde, almost silver, hair hung messily about his face, obscuring his features. Topaz eyes stared, practically glared, at her from under long bangs. She frowned back. Just what has Mischa told him about her that he already didn't like me? He wore a brilliant red t-shirt and blue jeans. A strange bead and tooth necklace hung around his neck. To her second sight, it twinkled with holy magic. An illusion spell, she assumed, to hide his demonic features.

"I was not hiding," Mischa said simply. Kagome got a slight feeling that Mischa had tricked her again.

"So who's your friend?" Kagome asked, with a look that said, 'We'll discuss your note later.'

Before she got her answer, he spoke. "You look alike."

"Not really." Kagome personally couldn't see the resemblance between her older cousin and herself, even though their mothers had commented at great length of how similar they were in looks.

"I don't mean you look like twins. It's just obvious you're related."

Kagome thought that was obvious. Their mothers were sisters, and the girls probably smelled similar. She shrugged. "I'm her cousin."

He rolled his eyes. Kagome bristled, but knew from being around Mischa's superhuman hearing not to call him anything under her breath.

Mischa hadn't said anything, which wasn't unusual for her, but Kagome had known her virtually unreadable cousin long enough to see a slight look of anxiety in her eyes that belied the calm she radiated. This worried Kagome, though she wasn't entirely sure why.

Kagome realized she still hadn't gotten his name. "And who are you?"

"Inu-Yasha," he said shortly.

'Obviously not one to waste words,' she thought with a mental snort. "Interesting name."

"It suits me."

She looked pointedly at the out of place necklace he wore. "So it seems." Dog was obvious enough, but _yasha_ normally meant a demon of the female persuasion.

"You can quit sparring now," Mischa said in a slightly exasperated tone. "Inu-Yasha, Kagome is a miko. Kagome, you must sense he is another hanyou, except a dog, not a wolf. He is far older than he looks."

"So are you," Kagome grinned. Mischa made a face, trying to join in on Kagome's good humor. Inu-Yasha snorted in an amusement. "So are your features as crazy as Mischa's?"

"I don't know. Her tail's less noticeable than my ears, since they're on top of my head and her tail's got a death grip on her butt." He smirked.

She giggled, recalling the first few weeks after Mischa had told her about being a half-demon. She'd tried everything to find Mischa's tail while she had her illusion up and had Mischa thinking her either insane or a perverted, incestuous lesbian. Which had taken some time to explain that, no, she liked furry things, but not that way.

"And nobody is looking there," Mischa said with a smirk. Kagome goggled. It had taken ages to get Mischa comfortable enough around her to even pretend to be amused.

"Feh." He brought his gaze back to Kagome. "You're taking this remarkably well."

She shrugged, grinning. "I've seen lots of weird stuff, so I've learned to take this at face value and not question them too much." She knew she'd get his life story by the end of a week, even without her asking prying questions. All it took was practice babbling. "Hey, nobody else is here, why not take your illusions off? I know Mischa hates running around without her tail, and I think her face looks odd without her markings."

Inu-Yasha stared at Mischa. "When the hell did you get demon markings? Do you know just what that means?"

Mischa glared at Kagome. Kagome figured she'd be spending the rest of the day being confused. Mischa had had those markings for as long as Kagome had known she was hanyou. How would he not know about them?

Mischa's gaze returned to Inu-Yasha. "_Hogosha_, remember? They came with the title."

Now it was Kagome's turn to stare at her cousin. Hogosha meant protector. What did that mean?

He crossed his arms over his chest. "I don't believe you. No way in hell can a hanyou, even a _hogosha_, get youkai markings."

Mischa sighed. "Fine, I'll prove it."

She pulled a set of dog tags out from under her shirt and lifted the chain over her head. Two dark red stripes appeared on her right cheek and wrist. Kagome knew from experience identical marks were around the woman's right ankle as well. A long bushy black tail curled lazily about her waist, and her ears took on a slight pointed appearance. Her cheekbones became more prominent and slanted, giving her a more inhuman appearance, but she still had the look of an adolescent. Kagome's fingers twitched to pet Mischa's tail, but knew Mischa would never let her around others.

Inu-Yasha started swearing. Kagome blushed at the imagery some of it conjured up.

Mischa snorted. "That was my reaction. Could we discuss this later?" Kagome got the feeling the woman didn't want to discuss their meaning in front of her. Which was odd, since Mischa had explained them as birthmarks. And yet Inu-Yasha hadn't known about them. She set the puzzle aside to listen to his reply.

"We had better, wolf." His tone left no room for arguments.

Mischa nodded. "Will you help?"

Inu-Yasha stared at the two women for a while, considering the request. Help with what? Kagome felt like she was missing the vital parts of the conversation. Finally he shrugged. "Why the hell not. I was getting a bit young for Murakami anyway."

"A bit young?" Kagome repeated, confused.

Kagome marveled at how easily his glares could make her feel stupid for talking. She glared right back, refusing to let him know how uncomfortable he was making her feel. "I've lived as Takara Inu-Yasha in Murakami for the past ten years. My illusion doesn't change, since it isn't my magic, so I still look the same age as I did when I first moved in."

"I should have realized," Kagome said. The magic is his necklace couldn't be his- no hanyou could use magic- so of course he wouldn't be able to make his illusion age. Mischa's wasn't as much of a problem. Kagome had designed it merely to disguise her inhuman features- her tail, her ears, her too sharp face- not to give her an entirely different appearance as whoever had done Inu-Yasha's had.

"Is there anything else we need to discuss, wolf?" Inu-Yasha asked, looking impatient to leave.

"Not presently." Kagome was impressed Mischa didn't even look in her direction, even though she knew it was her presence that kept them from discussing whatever it was that brought him from Murakami.

"I'll be back in a couple of days. Stay out of trouble."

He was worried, Kagome could tell. Maybe he wasn't as much of a jerk he seemed. She smiled at the man, happy in the knowledge that however Mischa knew him, he cared enough to lecture her to stay out of trouble. He looked confusedly back at her.

"I try," Mischa said with snort. "But she's a magnet for it."

"No I'm not! You're the one always getting into trouble, not me! I bail you out!" Kagome said, tugging on Mischa's ponytail. She frowned as Mischa showed no reaction to the tug.

"And I seem to recall having this conversation before, Kags."

"You're just imagining things," she said lightly. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Inu-Yasha. Have a safe drive back to Murakami."

"Likewise, miko."

Kagome growled. Mischa pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. Inu-Yasha looked startled.

It had been building since the moment she found the note earlier. The anger that Mischa wouldn't trust her to stay out of trouble, the irritation that Mischa worked so hard to keep her in the dark on matters that were important, the loneliness she felt without the three other frequent residents of the shrine. And their strange conversation had only worsened it.

The silent speech between the two she could understand, after all, she did that with her friends too. Not to mention with the tight-lipped Mischa, it was relatively necessary. The strange insider conversation that they kept from her, she'd allow for now. The mystery concerning Mischa's markings and this 'hogosha' thing she mentioned, annoyed her to no end, and she was going to interrogate the wolf the moment they were alone. But she'd be damned if she was going to be called miko by every demon she met. She was just a normal college student who happened to know magic.

"What is it with you guys and calling people by their titles? My name is Kagome. Ka. Go. Me. NOT miko, and I won't answer to it. Every single time I come across a youkai, it's 'miko this' and 'miko that' and I'm SO sick of it! Even Mischa has trouble saying my name and I've been trying to get her to say it for over five years!" Faint pink light formed about her clenched fists. Both hanyou stared at her nervously.

"Now is not the time for ranting, Kags," Mischa said, trying to placate the girl.

Unlike a normal miko, Kagome was extremely emotionally volatile, and the miko thing was a serious sore spot with her. Priestesses were usually identified and trained at a very early age, or else went untrained, never tapping into their innate holy power. Kagome was one of those rarities who were found young enough to still use her powers, but too old for some of the trainings- such as learning to instinctively control, or at least shield, her emotions. Unfortunately for Kagome, her miko powers were based off of emotions. And half-trained as she was in dealing with the interaction between her emotional state and her abilities, she could cause serious damage if she lost control of her temper.

"Inu-Yasha, you should leave. I will calm her."

He looked even more worried. "That's purification energy, you'll- " She cut him off.

"Do not worry."

They were ignoring her now. Pink sparks flew off her hands, causing both hanyou to rapidly move further from her.

"Beat it," she ordered. "Now. She still has control, but if she does not calm down soon, she will lose it. And I cannot help her with you here."

The hanyou made a dignified, if hasty, exit.

The last thing she remembered was Mischa's bright cobalt eyes looking into hers, her mouth forming words Kagome couldn't hear, her hands pressing down hard on Kagome's shoulders. Then everything disappeared in a flash of pink and dark amber.

**-----**

:: _Hello again, young one. This is becoming a common occurrence with us, isn't it?_ ::

The first few times he had shown up, Kagome knew she had been awake. After Mikomi had started her training, he had left, telling her to pay attention to the older miko's teaching. But over the past two years, he had showed up in her mind in her infrequent fainting fits, or whatever it was that happened when she let her powers run away with her.

"It's not like I do this on purpose," she said to the glowing blue light in front of her.

:: _You need to learn better control_. :: He scolded. :: _It's not wise to purify good youkai, even if they are annoying._ ::

"Mischa isn't annoying," she argued. Most of the time, she added silently.

:: _Just keep telling yourself that, miko. I am sure you'll believe that sooner or later, depending on how long it takes for you to find out what the hanyou are hiding._ ::

"I trust Mischa to explain herself in time. Which is more than I can say for you. You won't even tell me who or what you are." She wasn't even sure he was a he. He could be an it, or a she. But she liked to think females weren't that arrogant, so the voice was male.

:: _I thought you had given up on figuring out who I am.::_

"Not a chance, pal. I'm going to keep at it until I figure out what you are." She was still angry with the whole demon population for forgetting her name. "Maybe a youkai. You always call me miko..."

_:: You are one, why should I not call you that?_ ::

"But I'm not just a miko. I'm a student, a daughter, a sister, a waitress, and lots of other things. And there are lots of other people who can claim that. But no one else can claim to be Higurashi Kagome, so I am Kagome, not miko."

:: _You are also juvenile and oversensitive_. ::

"And you're arrogant and completely lacking in anything remotely resembling emotions," she bit out.

:: _Now is not the time to start with the name-calling. But try to pay attention to me. :: _She tried to reign in her anger to listen. Sometimes what he said actually made sense. _:: Things have finally started, and if you don't keep control of your emotions and powers, things will happen too fast for you to be able to react to them and you will end up dead or worse._ ::

She sighed. "What's worse than dead?"

:: _You are a creative girl, I'm sure you can think up a few things._ ::

"That bad, huh?" Her voice didn't come out as light-hearted as she hoped.

:: _You are trouble incarnate. Now wake up._ ::

**-----**

'I'm not trouble.' But she was already back in the real world. He had won the last retort, again.

Kagome blearily opened her eyes, removing the cool washcloth resting on them. 'The blackouts are happening more frequently. What's going on?'

Mischa sat on the sofa near her feet, wrapping her hands in white bandages. To Kagome's miko senses, the demon blood in her cousin had retreated some, making it appear as if Mischa was at most a quarter demon. Mischa was probably just thankful she hadn't been knocked completely back into human form again. It had been known to happen.

"You must control yourself better, Kags. It would be difficult to explain to Mother that you purified a hanyou because you lost your temper with him."

"I don't understand why you just can't call me Kagome. It's not like it's a hard name to pronounce," Kagome whined, sitting up to help her with the bandages. 'You really shouldn't have touched me with all that purification energy I was putting out.'

Mischa sat quietly, and Kagome wondered what she was thinking about. Finally, she spoke. "You need to understand, cousin, that youkai and humans have different customs. You humans frequently call each other by your given names, merely changing the form of address. But among youkai, calling someone by their name is- " Mischa paused, groping for words. "It is a very familiar thing to do. Much more so than how it is among humans. It is used only by immediate family members and very, very close friends. Neither of which we have in plenty. And since youkai do not have last names, we call each other by our titles, or our species."

Kagome tried digesting the information. "You and your friend have last names."

Mischa hissed as Kagome gave a final tug on the bandage on her right hand before moving on to the left. "I am hanyou. I have my human mother's maiden name. His is an assumed name. He was born in a time where humans frequently did not have last names, so he changes his every thirty years, or so he says. I have only known him as Takara Inu-Yasha."

"Not even humans had last names? Just when was he born, Sengoku Jidai?"

Mischa shrugged. "I never asked. All I know is he is past the century mark."

"He doesn't look that old," she mused. "How long have you known him?" Kagome knew from experience that Mischa was most talkative after being hurt- usually because Kagome ended up having to heal her with her magic, and that always made her demon blood withdraw rather than stay in contact with holy energy. So she was using the injuries she had inadvertently caused to pump the hanyou for information before Mischa caught on and shut up. She felt slightly guilty about it, but not enough to not ask.

Mischa gave her a half-smile, running her bandaged hand through her hair as she thought. "Close to twenty years, I think. The first time we met, I kicked him in the shins."

Kagome stopped in her wrapping to cover her mouth to hide giggles. She finally asked, "Whatever for?"

Mischa looked embarrassed. "It turns out Inu-Yasha works for the same youkai my grandfather does, so they frequently met to discuss matters. He was dressed rather sharply when he came that first time. The last time I had seen someone dressed in a suit, it had been a missionary, wishing to tell me all about why I should believe in the Christian God and His Son. I didn't want a repeat lecture about the evils of being in a cult, so I decided to scare him away. Five year olds don't think too properly, ne, Kagome?"

Kagome couldn't hold back her laughter anymore. Mischa sheepishly grinned as Kagome laughed at her expense, understanding she needed a release from the earlier scare. As her laughter died down to hiccups, she managed to get out, "How'd he react?"

"He threw me across the yard, yelling something about stupid pups and fucking Western suits. Come to think of it, I've never seen him in a suit since," she mused. "Our entire relationship seems to have been foreshadowed in that encounter. We swap insults and beat each other up. Bastard dog usually beats me." Mischa pouted.

Kagome stared. Mischa, pouting like a normal human girl. Mischa babbling away about a cute guy. Mischa actually calling her by name. Mischa, being entirely out of character. Either she had hurt Mischa's hands more than she thought, or Mischa was trying to distract her away from something. But it was so nice to just talk with her that Kagome didn't want to think about why Mischa was being overly talkative. "You beat each other up? What kind of friends are you?"

Mischa laughed. "You're a human, Kagome, you wouldn't understand." There was no condescension in her words, only truth, but it still annoyed her.

"You're half human too, Meirin Mischando," she said sharply.

Mischa sighed. Kagome only used her full name when she was planning a lecture, and Mischa knew she needed to fast-talk herself out of it, or at least explain herself. "Youkai don't have friends. And human friends are usually fair weather only. For those few of us who have the blood of both- it's even more difficult to find someone you can truly trust. He owes me his life. I owe him mine, though he never seems to see it. Without him being a hanyou too, I never would have- " Mischa's jaws snapped shut in the middle of the sentence.

Guess deep conversation time was over. She was surprised it had lasted as long as it did. Kagome noted abstractedly that Mischa had roughly finished tying up her hand and left the room, but she was too stunned to say anything. Her thoughts flew a mile a minute, processing all that Mischa had said and left unsaid in the course of the conversation.

The fact Mischa had let the guy yell at her without her yelling back at him. The silent looks that spoke volumes, even if Kagome couldn't read them. Twenty years history, pretty much all of Mischa's life. Debts that neither could repay. Ties that, had the two been human, spoke of a deep understanding of each other and the trust that Mischa so wished for from others. But Kagome still didn't know where the two stood with each other.

She recalled one of the first times Mischa had spoken of her knowledge of youkai, after yet another of Kagome's outbursts about how Mischa must hate her, since she treated her so poorly.

_("Youkai do not have feelings as humans understand them, Kagome. Eternity becomes boring swapping empty compliments all the time, and enemies are often held in higher regard than allies. So if you see two youkai who have been at each other's throats for centuries, it is nothing you need interfere with. You simply see two friends reaffirming their bonds of respect and trust. So do not judge the way I act solely on my human blood. I am also a demon, and it is difficult to remember that I'm with humans in Tokyo and not youkai on a farm in the mountains of Niigata. I try, but I have spent all my life trying to be only youkai. Give me time.")_

It had taken Kagome months to understand the wolf-girl's odd outburst, and she still didn't completely understand. More recent words came to her.

("_You're a human, Kagome, you wouldn't understand.")_

"But I understand more than I used to," she whispered. "You really do think you're alone in the world, don't you? And that Inu-Yasha guy is a hanyou too, and feels the same way, which is why you two were so at ease. You remind each other that there's someone else like you, that you aren't alone with your differences."

She stood up to find her cousin. 'You can't hide anymore, Mischando. I'll get you to accept yourself yet.'


	5. Four: The Boys

AN: Randomness of some of the other characters involved in the story, hopefully explaining more of the plot to you and telling you what they're up to. Some of it is to leave openings for me should I decide to make minor characters more major. And if I hear any complaints about half of this chapter being only about Souta, well, too bad. He's cute, he plays soccer, and few people write about the poor boy. (Even Hojo gets into more fanfiction than Souta.) He deserves some spotlight time. And since he's such a minor character in the anime, I can do his character as I like. Always a plus.

**Chapter Four: The Boys**

_"Consider the past and you shall know the future."_

- Chinese Proverb

**-- May 9, Tokyo, Japan --**

A young man with dark red hair sat in a secluded booth of a McDonald's, talking quietly into a cell phone as he poked at some cooling French fries, debating whether or not they were actually edible.

"No sir, not yet. I did see someone who fit the description of the girl, but it wasn't her. The miko magic I sensed wasn't directly hers. She obviously knows a miko and took the liberty of confiscating a magical item from her."

There was a long pause as the man on the other line spoke. The redhead got a slightly annoyed look to his face.

"Sir, it wasn't her. Yes, she had blue eyes and blue-black hair and studies medicine at the university, but she was too tall and too _hanyou_ to be a miko."

Had anyone been sitting nearby, they could have overheard the yelling from the other end. Of course, had anyone been sitting nearby, they would've wondered at the sanity of someone talking about demons as if they were real.

"Well I've mentioned it now, sir."

A short pause, then his eyes widened.

"You want me to _what_?" A small girl with a long green and black braid turned from her spot in line and glared over at him. He gave her an apologetic look and lowered his voice. "I'm not a tracker, sir. I find the people you ask me too, then move on to the next case. I'm not about to follow this girl all over Tokyo."

An eyebrow twitched as he listened to the man on the other end give his opinion on the matter.

"May I speak freely, _sir_?" He didn't pause long enough for an answer. "I took this job with the clear understanding that I was a finder, not a shadow. You've got plenty of other people who are better at that. I don't give a shit if this hanyou is important, you asked me to find a _miko_, which I am in the process of doing. Get someone else to tail the hanyou." He emphasized his point by banging his fist down on the table, knocking over a plastic stand advertising desserts.

The girl giggled as the man held the phone away from his ear as the man on the other end started shouting incoherently. Other customers in the restaurant turned to look as well. He grinned sheepishly at them and shrugged. After suitable looks of amusement, pity, and annoyance were shot his way, they returned to their own matters. After awhile, the man seemed to run short of breath and stopped. The redhead put the phone back to his ear.

"Well, you could have mentioned that earlier! It's not like I know what they smell like!" A woman passing past the table to take her son outside on the playground stared oddly at him. He grinned at her and lowered his voice. "You could have told me that you were using the miko to find the hanyou. It's easier to find a hanyou with miko magic on her rather than just a miko. It's not as if they're common."

The other man wasn't shouting anymore, but the redhead continued to look angry.

"What's so important about these two girls anyway? Yes, priestesses are no longer common, and half demons are even rarer, but that's not enough to interest- " He broke off. After a long pause, he whispered, "Holy shit."

**-- May 13, a road in Japan --**

Inu-Yasha was never one for long moments of reflection. It wasn't in his nature. When he was younger, he would take what facts he knew, draw his own conclusion, then race into battle. A hundred years wiser now, he would search out as much information as he could before drawing his conclusions, and he wasn't as ready for death as he used to be. But he still refused to over-think situations.

Which didn't explain why the entire drive back to his home in Murakami, his thoughts had dwelled upon three women. It must be the presence of the Goshinboku and the memories it brought back.

He had never noticed it before in the wolf. Maybe it was because he knew she was half demon. Maybe it was because she was too tall. Maybe it was because he had never seen her as a human before. Maybe it was just because he had watched her grow up.

But he saw the resemblance in her cousin. The miko looked very similar to the wolf, but even more similar to the first Guardian he knew. Oh, her hair and eyes weren't the right color, but her build and facial features were a perfect match, not to mention she was a miko as well, and her powers exhibited themselves in the same color as the previous miko he had known at that shrine. Funny how he'd never noticed it earlier.

It had been her anger at being called miko that had cemented the recollection of memories better left buried. Being called miko reminded her that she was not normal, that the world was not as happy and safe a place for her as it was for other humans. **She** had been like that too, wishing for normality. And **she** hadn't minded the fact he was hanyou either. For both, it seemed that it was _who_ you were, not _what_ you were, that was important for them.

He brought his head down hard against his steering wheel as he waited for the traffic light to change. 'Will I never be free from your ghost, Kikyo?'

The drive to Murakami was long.

**-- May 13, near Ishikari, Japan, on the island of Hokkaido --**

Higurashi Souta lazily rocked the swing back and forth as he stared at the ceiling of the porch he sat on. He sighed. Here he was, on a beach with tons of gorgeous girls to try and pick up, and all he could think about was why he was on Hokkaido instead of in Tokyo, preparing for soccer camp.

Sure, Mischa was always in the middle of some sort of trouble, but it had never gotten as far as the shrine grounds. So why had Mikomi asked them to leave the island? And better yet, why did his mother agree? What had worried them so?

Not that he minded being here at all. After all, they were staying near a beach, and the view was magnificent. And it wasn't just the view of the sea. Too bad the girls traveled in packs. It was embarrassing trying to hit on a girl with all her girlfriends staring and giggling as he finally managed to remember to ask for her name. It didn't help that, while the bathing suits they wore made them look gorgeous, they also made him forget to breathe. He was sure that those tiny triangles of cloth weren't really meant to be worn. They were handkerchiefs, he was certain.

He wished he were back in Tokyo. Ayame was going to be mad at him for not calling, since he hadn't memorized her new phone number yet. And soccer camp was starting soon, and that was the best place to get spotted by the recruiters. How could he expect to get into a school with a good soccer team if he couldn't even go to the camp where they looked for talent? He needed to call Yoshi-sensei about that. The young soccer coach would be upset that his protégé had taken a surprise vacation. Though sensei probably wouldn't mind too much if he promised to train.

Why did his mother drag him up here anyway?

"Mom?" he asked.

His mother looked up from the book she was reading. "What is it, Souta?"

"Why are we here?"

"I thought Ishikari would be nice this time of year."

Like he would buy that excuse. It was Aunt Mikomi's idea, not his mother's, to come out here.

"Why didn't we bring Kagome with us?"

He didn't ask about his cousin. After all, she was a grown woman, with a job and an apartment and, well, everything. She didn't have the time for the extended vacation that had been forced upon him. Plus, everyone always thought she was his girlfriend whenever she went anywhere with him. It was creepy. He thought Kagome's idea of introducing the woman to make-up was a great idea. Maybe then she'd stop looking his age and start looking her own.

"I trust her to take care of herself. She'll be off to medical school soon, and she could use the practice living on her own."

Maybe the trouble would follow Kagome wherever she went and that was why she wasn't with them. It seemed unlikely, though. The forced lightheartedness of her voice was apparent. His mother could be so obvious sometimes. She was worried sick, but didn't want him to know. No need to make her suspicious.

"Do you think things will be back to normal by the time we get back?"

"We can only hope," she said, avoiding lying about not knowing anything about Tokyo not being normal for a time. She placed a bookmark in the book and stood from the chair. "I'm going inside to make tea. Why don't you run down to the beach and have fun? I don't want you moping around the cottage because you want to be at soccer camp, not here. Enjoy your youth, Souta. It doesn't last long." She gave a warm smile and walked inside.

Souta returned his gaze to the ceiling. Kagome didn't need time away from them. Sure, she saw him more often than she did Eri, but that was because her friend attended university in Kyoto, and only came home for break. Though sometimes Kagome would visit her. But that didn't explain their apparent abandonment of her.

What would manage to persuade his mother to leave her beloved Tokyo during her favorite season? Danger, of course. But why would Kagome stay in Tokyo if there was something there that was dangerous? Then it hit him. Kagome could be the danger.

But how was she dangerous? Sure, getting between her and a bowl of oden was likely to have you end up hospitalized, and she didn't handle being called names well. But otherwise, Kagome was pretty normal. Besides the random explosions and lightshows that had gone on when he was younger. But those had stopped.

Maybe Mischa would tell him what was going on in Tokyo. Neither of their mothers would tell him, but his cousin could be counted on to give a hint or two. Kagome was probably as clueless as he was. It was incredible how oblivious his sister could be to everything. Though she wasn't as blind as Hojo. He wondered how Kagome had managed to get him to ask Yuka out. Or maybe Yuka asked him out. She was certainly a forward enough girl to do it.

Even if Mischa wouldn't tell him why he had to leave Tokyo, it would be nice to hear from her again. She had spent the entire semester holed up in the library, or at classes, or at work, and he couldn't remember the last time he had seen her longer than an hour. And maybe she could get Ayame's new number for him.

He snuck quietly into the house. His mother would be upset if he was inside and not outside, supposedly enjoying his vacation. He'd much prefer soccer camp. At least the girls weren't as bubble-headed as the ones he had met here, even if their clothes weren't as interesting.

The cordless phone was in the kitchen. Peeking his head in, he saw his mother sitting on a barstool with her back to him, waiting for the tea to finish brewing. He twirled his first two fingers in the air, and the phone flew across the room to smack loudly into his hand. He quickly ducked back outside before his mother could investigate the sound.

Did he even have Mischa's cell phone number? He knew Kagome's, but half the time it was dead, and the other half, she would forget to turn on the sound. He dimly remembered Mischa mentioning that hers and Kagome's numbers were different only by the last two being reversed. Or something like that.

He climbed up the tree nearest the house and nimbly hopped onto the roof. It had become a habit when Kagome had her friends over and they were giggling and squealing over the latest heartthrobs and clothes trends. Girls were nice and all, but they obsessed about the weirdest stuff. Soccer was so much cooler than Elijah whatever.

He sat down and looked out at the view of the sea. It was much more impressive than the one on the porch, even if the people did have a tendency to look like ants. Hoping his mother wouldn't be too mad at him for calling long distance, he dialed the number he thought was Mischa's.

"Moshi moshi," a dull voice came over the line.

Had he gotten the right number? "Mischa?"

There was a short pause. When she finally spoke, her voice had regained its energy. "Hey brat. Sorry for sounding so tired, it has been a rough week."

Maybe he wouldn't have to work too hard to get the information. "How so?"

There was silence on the other end.

"Mischa?"

"Did you not see the news?" she finally said.

"We don't have a television here, and only get the newspaper on Sunday. What did we miss?" Something was definitely going on in Tokyo. And it was completely unfair of his mother and aunt to leave him out of it. Maybe he could hitchhike back home.

"There was an explosion at my apartment a couple of days ago. I was working late, so I was not home, but my place is totaled."

"That is so cool!"

"It is no laughing matter, brat. The police told me that they believe the bomb was planted in my kitchen, and I would have been in there cooking dinner when it went off."

Maybe it was safer on Hokkaido. Nobody was trying to kill him here. "I guess you're at the shrine then."

"Not at the moment, but yes, I am staying there." His cousin sounded tired.

"When you get the chance, could you get Ayame's number for me? She changed phones again, and I haven't called that number often enough to memorize it yet. I wrote it down on the notepad next to my computer."

"If you insist," she said in a disapproving manner.

"Don't be so grumpy. How's sis?"

He wondered if she was planning on spending the entire conversation trying to telepathically communicate with him.

"Still there, Mischa?"

"Yes." She paused. "Your sister is fine, if annoyed."

Kagome being annoyed was nothing new. "What did you do?"

"Nothing. She was in one of her moods. Anything else you need or can I get back to shredding tree bark?"

It sounded like Kagome wasn't the only one stressed over something. And something else had to be going on for Mischa to say how stressed she was.

"I'm not sure how to ask," he told her.

"As clearly as you can."

His mother was always telling him he should go into law. Nobody wanted him to ask them anything, because he always managed to make them say more than they should have or wanted to. Kagome did it too, but she was much subtler. Well, if she wanted straightforward bluntness, she'd get it.

"Why did we get sent away?"

Mischa continued her annoying habit of saying nothing. He doubted she was surprised at the question. She knew he wasn't stupid, and had probably been expecting the call.

"Mischa, please. What's going on there that would make Mom leave Tokyo as soon as the term ended?"

"It is nothing you should be involved in. Please do not ask. It will only get you hurt as well. Stay there."

"Miiiischaaa," he whined. "I just want to know what's going on."

"Souta," she said in a clipped voice that left no room for bargains.

He blinked. "Sorry, Mischa. Don't forget to get Ayame's number for me."

"Only because you insist. And I promise once this is over, I will explain everything. Just... not now."

And he knew that was all she was going to say to him of the matter.

"Good-bye, Mischa. And try to get some more sleep, you sound like hell."

She had already hung up.

He stared gloomily out at the sea, the good mood from his play in the kitchen gone completely.

She had said his name. In the years he had known her, he could count on his two hands how many times she had said it. It was just a peculiarity of hers. He knew Kagome didn't like it- he had concluded long ago she liked hearing her name- but at least Mischa called her something resembling her name. She never willingly called people by their names unless she wanted to say something extremely important.

When was the last time she had called him by his name? He closed his eyes to think.

Last year, sometime during winter vacation. Grandfather had died a few months before, Kagome was visiting Eri in Kyoto, and his mother was in America for the week on business. She had asked Mischa to stay and watch him and the shrine until either she or Kagome returned.

**-- Flashback --**

_Sake, he decided, was not the drink of choice to drown sorrows in. At least not the sake that remained in grandfather's hidden stash. Grandfather may have liked it, but he wasn't here now, and Souta felt someone needed to get rid of the stuff. And right now was as good as any time._

_The jug was about half empty. It had been a couple hours since he started on it. He had heard once that drinking helped you forget. He had obviously been misinformed. He could still hear Ayame's voice ringing in his ears._

_ "I saw you with her, Souta! Who is she, that girl you won't admit to knowing? I'm not good enough for you, or is one just not enough? I can put up with your flirting with other girls, but I won't have you touching! And you two looked much too comfortable to be anything but lovers! I hate you, Higurashi Souta! I never want to see you again!" _

_And she had slammed the door on his hand without ever giving him a chance to explain himself._

_He supposed the situation had looked rather wrong from an outsider's perspective. Mischa had the habit of walking him through karate moves he was learning, and for Ayame, who was only walking by and not actually watching them practice, it did look a lot like they were embracing, if in an odd fashion. Or else maybe dancing. And then the two of them walking back to the shrine hadn't helped either._

_But she wouldn't let him explain. It was like she expected anything he said would be a lie and didn't want to hear it. And the lack of trust hurt. And her words hurt._

_And the sake really wasn't helping at all, he thought glumly._

_The front door closed quietly._

"_Welcome back," he muttered to the sake jug, not looking up to see Mischa walk into the room._

_She silently took the sake jug and left the room. He continued to stare at where it had been. _

_Ayame wasn't being fair. She had said her say, had **yelled** her say, but wouldn't allow him the same. Phone calls went unreturned; she ignored him in class, didn't sit with him at lunch anymore, and told all her friends he was a cheating bastard that had completely led her on. _

_Mischa came back into the room and sat down next to him. She didn't say anything and he didn't either. It was rather nice of her not to ask about why he had just done his best to get rid of grandfather's last sake jug._

_And suddenly it was too much for him to handle. Left behind by grandfather for a place he couldn't yet follow, abandoned by sister and mother for their own lives, dumped by girlfriend over an imaginary relationship with his cousin and then completely ignored by her and her friends, and now sake jug repossessed by someone who knew he'd had too much and hadn't said anything about it. His head slumped forward and hit the table with a loud bang._

"_It's not fair," he said, banging his fist down on the table. "It's not fair. It's… not… fair." And he kept mumbling it into the wooden table, getting quieter each time. He sniffled._

_As if that was a cue, Mischa shifted, sliding closer to him, and lifted his head off the table to look silently into his eyes. He saw no pity in them. She didn't believe in feeling sorry for people. But he saw his hurt reflected in her blue eyes. It was the final straw. Hurt, confused, and drunk beyond belief, he collapsed into her arms sobbing._

_Her arms curled protectively around him, and she pressed her cheek against the top of his head. It was a silent reassurance that, no matter what happened, there would always be someone who cared about him, who would be there for him. And even if it wasn't Ayame holding him, it was enough to calm him. His sobs quieted down to hiccups._

"_Things will get better, Souta, I promise," she whispered near his ear._

_They had remained like that until he fell asleep._

_He had woken the next morning in his own bed. His head felt like it had been used to break cement. A note lay on the nightstand with a glass of water and two Tylenol. 'Gone to class. Take the pills and a warm shower. Cut back on the sake. –Mischa.'_

_When she got home, she acted as if he hadn't been the hugest baby in the world and completely drenched her favorite shirt with tears and snot. And it was back to being called brat. It helped to cheer him some._

_The phone call two days later from Ayame begging forgiveness for not waiting for his side of the story helped too._

**-- End Flashback --**

He had never even told her why he had grandfather's sake jug out, but Mischa had somehow known what it was he was so upset over.

Neither girl told him much about what they had discussed about the incident, but Souta knew Ayame's call had come at Mischa's behest. Ayame ran every time she was with him when Mischa stopped by, and Mischa's usual passive face bore a very angry snarl every time he mentioned his classmate. He had a good feeling the two couldn't stand each other, and that Ayame was more than just a little afraid of the graduate student.

Strange though his cousin may be, he knew she was watching out for him, but never going so far as to try and be a parent.

So, with that one single word of warning, she had told him more than he thought she would. He thought over what he knew. Her apartment had gotten blown up- maybe he could look for pictures in the paper-, he, his mother, and his aunt were out of town, she had long history of getting into bloody fights that, while she said she won, left her in bandages for days, and then there was the whole mystery surrounding Aunt Mikomi's reappearance in their lives.

He wasn't her son, she never told him not to do something, even if it was stupid, though sometimes she gave words of warning. But she had told him to stay here, had backed it up with the use of his name to stop arguments.

A shudder ran through his body. Life at the shrine wasn't just going to be dangerous this summer. It was going to be deadly.

**-- May 14, Murakami, Japan –**

Inu-Yasha wasn't sure on how to explain this to his brother. After all, he had promised to always be available for work, and if he was babysitting the miko, he wouldn't be.

Straightforward bluntness was a good choice. It was his preferred method, and it had the added bonus of annoying his overbearing bastard of a brother.

Never one to make a decision and then second-guess himself to death, Inu-Yasha picked up his phone and dialed his brother's number.

Anal perfectionist that he was, Sesshoumaru answered after one ring. Or else Sesshoumaru somehow knew he was calling. It was possible. The aloof taiyoukai had called mere minutes after the wolf's apartment had blown up and complained about him lacking the sense to teach the younger hanyou the fine art of staying out of public notice. How Sesshoumaru knew anything was anybody's guess.

"Did you want something, little brother?" a cool voice came over the line. Inu-Yasha had given up on being surprised his brother always knew when he was calling.

"I'm going to be busy the next few weeks with some business in Tokyo. I thought I should tell you before you started ordering me around like usual and getting 'do it your own fucking self' instead of 'fine, have it your fucking way, you always do' as my reply."

"I see the wolf hanyou finally contacted you."

He had been expecting it? Sesshoumaru knew Inu-Yasha had gotten into a huge argument with her when she told him she was leaving for Tokyo to study medicine. As if a hanyou needed anything to do with human healing practices. Their demon blood acted much faster than any human medicine. So why would Sesshoumaru expect her to get back in touch with him? Unless…

"It's not what you're thinking, Sesshoumaru."

"And how would you know what this Sesshoumaru was thinking? You barely know what you are thinking."

"Because you always expect the worst of me. I'm just returning her a favor so that I'll have one less debt hanging over my head."

"Little brother, it took me twenty years to pound a sense of responsibility into you and you think doing the girl this one favor will repay your debt to her bloodline? Perhaps the lesson was not fully understood."

Inu-Yasha growled softly. "Dammit, Sesshoumaru, it's a different debt! And I'm not going to argue with her about whether or not it's a fair trade of services."

"Then you really do not know what you are getting yourself into." Was it just him, or did the bastard sound amused? "Very well then, Inu-Yasha. Take as much time as you need. I can have others cover your duties. This is, after all, a matter of honor."

"I wasn't asking for your permission." It was odd that he was even offering it, especially without Inu-Yasha asking for it.

"I am giving it to you anyway, little brother. Consider it your vacation from work. Without pay, of course." Now Inu-Yasha knew the bastard was making fun of him for getting into this mess.

"Fuck you, Sesshoumaru."

"That will not be necessary, little brother. I can find women to do that."

Inu-Yasha slammed the phone back down in its cradle. Now there was some imagery he never wanted to think about.

**-- May 14, Kyoto, Japan --**

Takara Sesshoumaru leaned back in his chair and allowed himself a small smirk. It was never an easy thing to get Inu-Yasha out of his rants, but over the past century, he had grown very good at it. The added pleasure of annoying him was just a bonus.

He looked across his desk to his guest. An older human woman, she had graying blue-black hair and serious brown eyes that flickered a deep blue every so often. He imagined the flickering came from her gift of foresight.

"This Sesshoumaru wonders if you are ever wrong, miko," he said in a detached voice.

"Not when it comes to matters of my gift. Matters concerning my family are another thing altogether. The children have a tendency to act irrationally."

"This Sesshoumaru has noticed all young are like that."

"I appreciate this, Sesshoumaru-sama. I am in your debt." She placed a folder on his desk.

The amusement in his eyes was not friendly, but the rest of features and voice remained as impassive as ever. "I know."

She stood and gave a polite bow, acknowledging his superior strength, but subtly informing him she was not without her own power. "Be sure to collect it before the afterlife calls, my lord." She backed out of the room and shut the door behind her.

He wondered whose death the miko had spoken of. His? Hers? Someone else's? Realizing he did not have time for contemplation, he reached for the folder the miko had left on his desk. His life had been much simpler before the miko had walked into his office twenty years ago and coolly informed him that she required the services of his ill-tempered half-brother. But her offer of free use of her gift of foresight had been too tempting to refuse.

Which left him with this folder of information on his desk, and the absence of his brother from the city for weeks at a time, though it had lessened a great deal in the past seven years. He could not say he missed having the hanyou running around the place. The idiot had absolutely no idea on how to behave around humans, and explaining his peculiarities to newcomers in the company was a hassle he was quite willing to live without.

What he had yet to determine was why the miko wanted him at all. At first he thought it was because her daughter was a hanyou as well. Which had been even more astonishing to learn than to hear a miko simply asking for youkai aid. After all, one could put up with allies. But a youkai and a miko, being on anything but unfriendly terms? He wondered who had asked whom about having a child. And she continued to live with the wolf pack, even after the hanyou had left. But he had grown accustomed to that oddity in the woman- after all, she continued to work for him, even though she knew he could kill her before she could summon her purification powers. Humans trusted far too easily. Which left him still wondering what his half-brother could have that a miko could want.

It was not magic, of course. Inu-Yasha could no more cast a spell than a kitsune could bypass a brothel. Nor was it his father's fang. A miko had no use for swords, nor could the woman use it if she tried. He had long since relinquished his claim on his father's second fang. He, after all, was much more dangerous unarmed than his Tetsusaiga-wielding half-brother, never mind how deadly he was with a weapon, and he had no use for a sword a youkai could not touch, much less wield. Which left him no further in his understanding of the woman's request than he had to begin with.

He opened the folder. The familiar light shock of the miko's powers disappeared as it recognized the youkai opening the folder. Had anyone else tried to open it, they would have gotten their hands burned as the folder disappeared into ashes. Human magic did have its uses.

Calmly sipping his tea, he read through the contents and thought of the mysteries surrounding his informant and her daughter no more.


	6. Five: Kitsune And Ookami

**Chapter Five: Kitsune and Ookami**

_"Anyone who isn't confused really doesn't understand the situation."_

-Edward R. Murrow

**-- May 14, Tokyo, Japan --**

Finally exams week was over. They were free until August, when the torture of lessons would begin again. It was time for a small tradition of theirs. Go to their favorite bar for a celebratory 'we survived exams yet again' drink. The enacting of their tradition helped keep Kagome calm about the fact Mischa was still refusing to explain just what was so dangerous about what was going on that she had invited another hanyou to the shrine to supposedly safeguard the place. Kagome wasn't buying that story. But it wasn't the right time to pout or shout about it.

"Did I tell you about the guy I saw at the library yesterday?" Kagome asked Mischa as the bartender placed their sake before them. "Thank you," she told him.

"No," Mischa said, picking up her cup to stare into it. Kagome thought she looked a bit like a fortuneteller reading tea leaves. She wondered if fortunetellers could use sake instead of tea. It would certainly increase their customer base, offering sake instead of tea.

"Gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. Body-to-die-for gorgeous. I mean, wow. Your Inu-Yasha was cute-"

Mischa shuddered. "He is not mine."

Kagome continued to babble. "- But he has absolutely nothing on this guy. I wonder if he's like Inu-Yasha and has demon blood in him. I didn't think to sense for it. Who could think around him? Gorgeous."

Mischa grip tightened imperceptibly on her cup. "What makes you certain he could be a demon?"

"Because with a name like Shimura Shinichi, I'd expect him to be Japanese. But that red hair is either that of a gaijin or is dyed. No way could it be natural. Though it matched his complexion perfectly," she said thoughtfully.

Small cracks started appearing in Mischa's cup. Kagome didn't notice it. "Red hair?" she said neutrally, careful not to sound interested.

Kagome took a sip of her sake. "Most beautiful shade of red I ever saw. Like fox's fur. Too good to be from a bottle. It had to have been natural. But he didn't have an accent. Japanese with red hair? And his eyes… sparkling amethyst. Like the gemstone. Except gemstones don't check you out." Kagome continued to wonder at if they were contacts. "Which is why I should have checked if he was a demon. But he was way too gorgeous to think around, so I obviously didn't think to check." Kagome didn't appear to notice that she was repeating herself. Numerous times.

The cracks in Mischa's cup deepened. "You met him in the library yesterday?"

"Yeah. He had a library worker's nametag on. That's how I knew his name," she told the increasingly tense girl sitting beside her. Kagome had yet to notice her cousin's state of mind. "He told me the library was closing and that I should head back to the shrine before it started to rain again. Though I remember Shimura-san being a rather elderly man."

Mischa's cup shattered, spilling sake all over the counter. "He is." And she stormed from the bar.

Kagome stared after her cousin, her thoughts finally taken away from the mysterious redhead. He was what? And why had Mischa left?

She tried to recall her last words. Something about Shimura-san being old, not young and gorgeous. Was Mischa saying Shimura-san was old? Then who was it she met in the library? And where had Mischa gone? To find Shimura-san or the redhead?

"Hey, she left me with the bill!"

**-----**

Mischa slammed the old man into the wall, her hands buried in his jacket. She noted that his feet were a good two feet off the ground, but she was too angry to care. The few visitors to the library gawked for a few moments, but were scared off by Mischa's angry stare. She returned her glare to the quivering man underneath her hands.

"Who was he?" She asked in a quiet dangerous voice.

"Wuw-who?" the man stuttered.

"The redhead from yesterday you loaned your nametag to. And do not deny it," she ordered as he started shaking his head. "I am the one he spoke to." She was lying, but she and Kagome looked so much alike, strangers normally couldn't be able to tell the difference, especially if they weren't in each other's presence. Her glare grew even narrower.

"I don't know!" he finally croaked. "He just asked to borrow the tag so he could use it to hit on a girl. It was only for a couple minutes, I didn't see the problem."

"Do you often let complete strangers borrow your tag?"

"He introduced himself as Takara Hojo. That's all I know about him. Besides the fact he had to beat the girls off with a stick to get out of the library. What I wouldn't have given to have sex appeal like that when I was his age," the old man said wistfully.

Mischa grimaced at the idea. Takara Hojo. Takara from Inu-Yasha, Hojo from Yuka's boyfriend. Obviously he expected one of the two to return to the library to ask about him. Kitsunes and their games. What was his, though?

She dropped the man unceremoniously on the ground. "Don't go handing out your tag. It could cost you your job." The threatening tone in her voice hinted that it could cost more than that, and he scrambled away from her as fast as possible.

She snorted in disgust and stormed out of the building, glaring at anyone who stared too long after the interesting sight they had just witnessed.

She sorted the puzzle out in her head as she walked back to the bar. What _was_ his game? First following her after the explosion, and she had been picking up someone tailing her off and on for days- even Kagome had complained about that- and now he masquerading as a library employee as an excuse to send Kagome back to the shrine before she was finished talking with Inu-Yasha. How would he have known about that?

She sneezed as she passed an occupied bench.

"I'm surprised it took the two of you that long to come back," the occupant said. She turned to see the redhead lounging on it, staring up at the sky. How had she not noticed him? She hadn't been that tied up in her thoughts to miss the flamboyant shock of red hair he had.

"Pardon?"

He moved his head to look directly into her eyes. "Don't play coy, hanyou. You know as well as I that the moment the miko remembered to think, she'd realize something was up. Do you know how boring this place is? Very thoughtless of you to leave me waiting here for two days. It gives me the feeling you don't like me very much."

"What do you want?" She asked sharply. The sooner she got away from him, the sooner she'd stop thinking about how Kagome going on and on about how handsome he was really didn't prepare her for this. Raw sexuality leaked from every pore, even as his magic turned away fellow pedestrians' eyes.

"Nothing, really. Just bored, and teasing a miko and hanyou is bound to keep me awake for at least a week. Of course, I was under the impression that the two of you actually spoke with each other. I expected you to show up yesterday."

"I had a previous engagement. What do you really want?" Mischa refused to believe in coincidence.

"I'm always up for a good time in the sack," he said with a lewd grin.

She just glared at him.

He sighed. "Doesn't hurt to ask. But really, I am just bored. And you've got to admit, your cousin is quite the looker. You're not bad yourself," he said, eyes flicking down and back up, "but I'm in enough trouble as it is that I'd rather not chase after jailbait. Though if you gave me the go-ahead-"

"Enough," she ground out.

He snickered and gave an innocent grin. "I'm Kain Matsuro, by the way. I'm sure you caught on to the fact I'm neither Shimura nor Takara."

Kain? But it wasn't time to think on that. "And how do I know that isn't another false name, Red?"

He scrunched up his nose. "Please tell me you're not going to be calling me that. Everyone calls me that. It's even worse than fox. And sit down already, I'm getting a crick in my neck looking up to you."

Mischa didn't see a reply to that, and stuck her hands in her pants pockets to continue looking down at him.

"You're a talkative one," he said, exasperated.

"I try."

"What's your name, anyway? I caught the miko calling you Mischa, but that's so completely un-youkai that it has to be a nickname."

Mischa was many things. Paranoid, overprotective, reserved, and often passive-aggressive, but she was not stupid. And she refused to believe his game of 'hey, I'm just annoying you for fun.' Either he knew someone who knew her, or he was working for someone after either her or her cousin.

"You already know it."

He raised an eyebrow. "Mischa it is, then."

"Find someone else to annoy. I'm busy."

"Your apartment?" She glared at him. "I'm a horrible person for eavesdropping, but I'm sure you do the exact same thing. Actually, it was the moment you said Takani that you piqued my interest. Girls who get their apartments blown up aren't usually my thing, but someone with miko magic draped on them and yet bothering to attend medical school? That interested me."

"I'm not telling you anything. Go bother someone else." She walked away.

"That went well," he said to no one in particular. "Though it will be interesting to see how long it will take for her to remember she left the miko in a part of the city where there's more youkai than humans."

**----- **

Since Mischa had abandoned her in a practically empty bar, Kagome felt no need in sticking around either. Sake by yourself was boring when you weren't trying to drink your troubles away, and it seemed everyone she knew already had plans for the summer that didn't include staying in Tokyo. Which was nothing unusual, but still highly annoying.

The streets of Tokyo were less crowded than usual. A tiny girl with a small braid called her Kage, apologized, then asked if she had seen another woman dressed similar to her, but Kagome hadn't. The girl frowned cutely and skipped ahead to the next pedestrian.

Looking for someone. Her thoughts returned to Mischa storming out of the restaurant. Kagome decided that Mischa had disappeared to the library to interrogate Shimura-san as to why he had suddenly turned forty years younger for a day. Or at least for a half hour.

She could try finding that redhead. Though it occurred to her that if her hunch was correct- even if it was based on Mischa' paranoia- he was the type who would find her, not the other way around.

"Finally ditched the hanyou, I see," someone said behind her.

She whirled and was nose-to-chest with a very tall, very large man. Mentally berating herself for still not remembering to sense for youki, she opened her senses up. She wasn't surprised to see that whomever she had just bumped into was youkai. She was surprised to sense many other demons nearby.

"Actually, she left me, not the other way around," she said as she stepped back from him to look up into deep brown eyes that glittered with malicious intent. Kagome got the feeling she shouldn't have said that.

"Even better. She won't be running back here for you." He made a grab at her wrist. Kagome pulled further back, bumping into someone else.

She hadn't sensed many demons nearby, she realized. She had sensed many demons _surrounding_ her. Foolishness.

"I don't need her to protect me," she said, reigning in the shot of panic she felt at the thought of being surrounded.

"That, little miko, is where you are wrong," the youkai behind her said.

She really needed to learn how to control her temper when she started getting called miko. Dark pink light flared around her.

"Stop calling me miko!" she shouted, letting the energy surrounding her expand outward. The youkai she had been standing in front of disappeared into dust. The other youkai impeding on her senses backed further away. The youkai who had originally spoken to her remained where he was.

"Quite a temper you have, human. It won't save you from Shinin-sama, so I would suggest reigning in on that magic."

Indeed, it didn't look like her undirected power was even touching him. It was keeping the others at bay, so she wasn't about to let go of her anger. She glared at him.

"No. I suggest you leave me alone or you'll be feeling more than the tickle of purification energy I'm putting out right now.

She caught one fear-filled whisper of "just a tickle?" before all the other youkai surrounding her vanished back into the shadows they had come from.

The brown-eyed youkai snorted. "Excellent bluff, miko. Now either back your words up with magic or cease emitting that energy."

It wasn't a complete bluff. She walked towards him, concentrating on focusing her flaring powers into a shield in front of her instead of simply surrounding her.

"Better, but still useless," he taunted, reaching through the shield to grab the front of her shirt and lift her off the ground.

"It's not useless," she told him, trying to calm the panic she felt when her feet stopped touching pavement. Anger would feed the magic, panic wouldn't.

By grabbing her, the youkai had carelessly moved closer to the shield. She let the pink shield expand to surround him. Darker streaks of magenta appeared in it as she focused her rage on him.

Pain finally started to appear in his face. He pulled her closer to him, eyes glaring dangerously. "Release your magic now, miko, or I break your neck."

Miko. Bastard. The anger flared. "So be it."

The shield exploded, lighting up the darkening surroundings with completely magenta light. She dropped abruptly to the ground as his very wounded body went flying backwards, hitting something with a loud thud and he made a strange gargling sound.

Kagome thought it odd that he hadn't flown further. He had stopped in the middle of the sidewalk instead of continuing on a good twenty feet more and then sliding a ways.

Her mystery was solved as he slid slowly downwards, revealing a tall woman with blue-black hair standing behind him, holding a long bloody knife in her right hand.

"Kagome, you still need serious practice directing that energy," Mischa said before collapsing backwards, pink purification energy sparking around her. One spark hit the dead youkai near her and the body vanished in a swirl of dust.

Kagome quickly stood to run and kneel by her cousin's side. The purification energy disappeared the moment Kagome touched her. Mischa was out cold.

"Oops."

She hadn't even sensed other youkai around. Not that a hanyou qualified as being youkai. The only reason she could sense Mischa's youki at the shrine was because the shrine itself was warded against demons. Probably why Mischa disliked being there so much. The shrine didn't like her either.

Come to think of it, she still wasn't sensing any demon energy from her hanyou cousin.

She picked up the knife and wondered what hidden pocket her supposedly unarmed cousin had pulled it out of. And why had Mischa used a knife on the youkai instead of her claws? Inspiration struck her and she reached out and pulled Mischa's dog tags over her head. She was not surprised when Mischa's human disguise blurred to reveal a still human-looking Mischa.

"Been a long time since I've done that," she told her unconscious cousin. "Under somewhat different circumstances. Though I suppose the 'youkai tries to kill defenseless girl' thing is still the same. Those idiots never pay any attention to their lessons on miko and their powers."

**-- Flashback, three years prior -- **

_Kagome rather liked walking with her Niigata relatives. They let her babble as much as she wanted, replying to questions when asked, but letting her relieve her stress without asking why she hurt. Not the most talkative duo, but she privately admitted to herself that she talked enough for the three of them. _

_It was rather silly to be upset over Hojo-kun asking Yuka out. She didn't like him in that way, but she had grown used to him trotting after her, always asking for a date she had to back out of each time. Come to think of it, it was usually Mischa's fault her dates with Hojo-kun kept getting cancelled. But her mother would have been upset over her missing a dinner with their relatives just to be out with a boy she saw every day at school. _

_"I still can't believe he asked her out! Or maybe she asked him out," she mused. Mischa exchanged an amused look with her mother. "I bet that's what happened. Yuka is so forward like that! And Hojo-kun is such a sweet, polite guy he couldn't say no without hurting her feelings. Not that I'm jealous," she reassured the two, "but it was so surprising to see them walking together through the park. Holding hands, even!" _

_The park was so beautiful. It was the fact they were there that she couldn't get the memory out of her head. She wondered where everybody was. It wasn't a popular park, to be sure, but usually they came across one or two people on their walk. But today, Kagome hadn't seen another soul. _

_"I mean, what's next? Ayumi running off and becoming ambassador to China?" _

_"It's possible," her aunt said. _

_"Hey, that's not funny!" Kagome scrunched up her nose. "You think you know a guy, and then BAM, he's dating one of your friends." _

_"You did keep putting off your dates with him," Mischa said, cobalt eyes glittering with open amusement. _

_She frowned at Mischa. She had to bring that up, didn't she? "Are you telling me it's my fault that he's dating Yuka and not me?" _

_Before Mischa could reply, she froze and looked out of the corner of her eye with a frown. A second later, she was shoving her mother and Kagome to the ground. _

_Kagome closed her eyes to keep from seeing the ground as she hit it face first with a hiss of pain. She opened her eyes to see her aunt sprawled next to her, and felt Mischa draped across the two of them, a long, sharpened metal pole running through her stomach and impaled on the cement with the force of her landing. Her eyes were shut tight and she whimpered with pain. To Kagome's inexperienced second sight, it looked like both Mischa and the pole was crackling with black and silver energy. _

_And then it hit her. There was a spear running Mischa through, even after her getting the other two out of the way. _

_"Merciful Buddha," she whispered as Mischa lifted herself up off them, eyes still closed, to kneel on the ground. The spear had to have at least a three-inch diameter. Mischa raised her hands to the spear, holding on to it, as if to try and pull it out. _

_Kagome sat up and reached a hand towards Mischa. _

_"Don't touch me," she was warned by a harsh voice barely recognizable as Mischa's. "She's still out there." _

_Mikomi had already stood. She motioned for Kagome to as well. 'But Mischa's hurt. Oh gods, that thing could have killed her.' She hadn't realized that it had been aimed for her. She stood unsteadily, still thinking she should be trying to help Mischa. But if whoever had thrown that spear was still out there, maybe it was better to find him before he threw another. Kagome concentrated on trying to sense the attacker. _

_There! She swung her head to look up into a tall tree, where she could make out a darker shadow high up in the branches. Mikomi had already seen her. _

_"Come down," her aunt said in a cool, commanding tone. _

_A small figure jumped down, landing quietly on the park floor. She was short, probably not much over four foot, with a dark blue braid swishing around in the breeze. Ruby red eyes glinted in malicious humor. She held another metal spear. It was at least two feet taller than her, closer to three. _

_"Damn mutt," the small youkai said, mostly to herself. "Didn't expect a hanyou to take a hit for a miko. Won't make that mistake again." _

_Kagome wished she had a weapon. Mikomi wasn't a battle miko, she didn't know how to use any weapon but a staff, and that was only because her husband had forced her to learn something for self-defense. Kagome was a battle miko, but she didn't have much training in fighting beyond hand-to-hand and archery. And she wasn't about to charge up against a youkai with a seven-foot spear with nothing but her bare hands. And her bow was at home. _

_Mischa started growling. To Kagome's ultra-sensitive eyes, the silver light was getting brighter. Yet the park remained as dark as it had been. She realized it was some kind of energy, not a true light. _

_The youkai snickered. "Noticing that it's ensorcelled not to be removed by anyone except me, hanyou?" _

_Kagome couldn't prevent a gasp of horror from escaping her lips. 'I really didn't believe that youkai battle tactics were so underhanded. Mischa yet again proves me naively innocent.' Mischa's growling grew worse. _

_"Don't let me stop you from trying, hanyou. It will kill you in a few minutes though. Now, if you don't mind, I have a couple priestesses to kill." She twirled the long spear expertly, and then lowered it to charge at Kagome. Kagome found herself frozen in shock. There was a tiny woman charging at her with a big-ass pole with a spiky end like she was out of some sort of cheap thriller flick. And she was dead earnest. Kagome definitely hadn't agreed to having people attack her. _

_Inches away from being hit, Kagome's feet were swept out from under her and she fell backwards. Mischa leapt up to her feet, kicking the youkai hard in the back as she passed, too surprised to stop. She stumbled forward, but caught herself from falling. _

_The youkai turned around, black light sparking viciously around her and her spear. "How are you even standing?" she asked, angry. _

_From Kagome's view on the ground, it looked like Mischa's eyes were still closed. She wondered why that was, and how her cousin had done all that blind. _

_Silver still intertwined with black around the hanyou and the spear, but the silver was slowly overtaking the black. Kagome noted dazedly that the usual brown of Mischa's energy had almost disappeared. _

_"One cursed weapon won't keep me down." Her voice sounded even less like her normal contralto than her first words had. _

_"Then obviously you need a second, so that you will stop interfering with my mission." _

_Kagome wanted to ask what mission, but the bright flash of silver overtaking black and brown took her mind off everything but Mischa as her cousin ran at the youkai, the spear still embedded in her gut barely slowing her down. _

_The youkai braced herself for the attack. Without bothering to slow down, Mischa grabbed the spear pointed at her with both hands and flipped over the tiny woman, skidding some as she landed on her feet and sending the tiny youkai looping over Mischa and hitting the ground hard. _

_"Definitely more trouble than I expected," the youkai said, then looked up to see that the spear she had been holding was now held to her neck. "Kill me and you'll never get that spear out of your body," she said, fear entering her voice. _

_The woman on the other end of the spear said nothing, merely smirked as, in one smooth motion, she tore the youkai's head off with her own weapon. _

_Kagome had risen up to sit and watch the entire thing with wide eyes. There was something seriously wrong with Mischa, she knew. Pain always did strange things to her cousin, she had discovered, but Mischa had never done anything even remotely resembling this. And she found that she was afraid of who her cousin was right then. There was no remorse in her face as she killed the youkai. _

_Mischa looked up from the dead body to the two priestesses. Kagome took a few hesitant steps in her direction. Mikomi stayed where she was, looking for something in her daughter's face that she couldn't find. _

_"Don't," Kagome was warned again in that alien voice. _

_Kagome froze. "Mischa?" _

_"Isn't here," her cousin said. To illustrate the point, she slipped off the pink beaded bracelet her mother had given her to disguise her hanyou features and crushed it in her hand. Kagome watched in bemused wonder as twin red markings appeared across each cheek and wrist, a long, bushy, black tail wrapping itself loosely around her waist to keep from being tripped over, and her eyes change from blue to silver. Kagome realized the illusion made her eyes appear blue all the time. _

_Kagome wondered what the changes in Mischa's usual hanyou appearance meant. Her aunt took the opportunity to tell her. _

_"Mischa's demon half, then." Mikomi sounded afraid. Had she ever seen her aunt afraid of anything? _

_"Call me Kage." _

_Kagome was beginning to get ticked at the whole youkai-miko thing. Was normality so much to ask for? She repressed the urge to sigh. If a demon was possessing her cousin's body, she'd do her best to try and get her cousin back. She stared boldly into the strange youkai's silver eyes. "What happened to Mischa?" _

_The woman motioned silently to the spear still embedded in her body. _

_"Dead?" She forced her voice to be calm, even though a shot of fear ran through her at the thought of her cousin dying. _

_The woman rolled her eyes skyward. Kagome took that for a no. But Kagome didn't understand what she meant by the spear being what had happened to Mischa, beyond the obvious. _

_"Then what?" _

_Annoyance flickered through the woman's eyes. She tapped the side of her head with a finger. _

_Kagome thought this over. The youkai was even less talkative than Mischa. Did she mean that Mischa was trapped in her mind? _

_"She's unconscious?" A wink and an unfriendly smirk that Kagome recognized from when she had first turned from the fallen youkai's body. _

_Kagome's sense of fear worsened. Then was no doubt Mischa was separate from this Kage-youkai who held her body right now. Mischa could never be so cruel or heartless, and she always went out of her way to be obvious in what she wanted to say when she wouldn't speak. This youkai was subtle in her movements, only being blaringly obvious when Kagome couldn't make heads or tails of what she said. But it looked to Kagome that Kage liked being free of her imprisonment within Mischa and had no plans of returning control of her body, should Mischa ever awaken. _

_In one fluid movement, Kage whirled, pulling the spear out of her body and swinging it into Mikomi, who had suddenly appeared behind her, hands sparking pink with the purification energy she had been about to unleash on the supposedly unsuspecting youkai. She flew across the park, roughly hitting a tree and slumping unconscious to the ground. Kage finished her circle and, without missing a beat, raced at the miko-in-training with inhuman speed. _

_Kagome found she was again frozen, but this time in fear of hurting her cousin, whose body it still was. Then instinct took over and her hands flew out in front of her, unleashing a powerful blast of pink purification energy that sent both girls flying in opposite directions. _

_Kagome landed flat on her back and bounced right back up to her feet. Forty feet away, near Mikomi, a brown form lay still. Kagome raced to her aunt's side. _

_She was unconscious, with a dark bruise already forming across her right arm and side where the spear had been smashed against her. Kagome thought a similar bruise would be appearing on her aunt's back from the tree she had hit. Reassured that her aunt would be fine, she headed over to the brown form still sparking pink with purification energy. Kagome knelt down to roll the woman over. The light vanished at her touch and Kagome gasped. The battered body was a very human Mischa. _

_Gone were the red stripes that usually adorned her cheek. Her ears were completely round and Kagome noted Mischa's tail had disappeared as well. Her features had lost much of their alien angles, though it made her look older instead of younger. Kagome had no time to think about that as brown eyes snapped open. _

_"K'gome?" Mischa said hoarsely. _

_Kagome. It sounded so similar to kagami. Mirror. With the exception of the brown eyes, she was looking into her very reflection. Had she used so much magic that she had turned her cousin into herself? _

_"What happened? All I remember is sensing that spear coming, and getting you and Mother out of the way." _

_She shook her head. That was impossible. If a hanyou could take on a solely youkai form, wasn't it possible they had a solely human form as well? _

_"Kagome," Mischa said, sounding puzzled, "why am I human?" _

_Or maybe not. _

_"This isn't the right day for me to be human." _

_Or maybe so. _

_"Oi, Kagome. Don't tell me you've gone mute now. You've got to tell me why I haven't got any bloody wounds and still feel like absolute shit." _

_Why did Mischa keep calling her Kagome? _

_Did she just say she didn't have any wounds? _

_She finally managed to find her tongue. "I, ah, accidentally purified you." _

_"That would explain it." Mischa's face relaxed some. _

_"What?" _

_"Mother did it to me once. Did you know that zapping too much purification energy into a hanyou reverts them back to human form for hours? Though knowing how overboard you get with your energy, I wouldn't be surprised to be like this for the rest of the week." She grimaced at the thought. "Still doesn't explain why I'm covered in blood and don't have any wounds." _

_"Your cousin," a weak voice said near the two, "is overflowing with healing energy. The moment you became human, the healing energy picked up on the fact you were dying and fixed everything. It did the same thing to me. But it uses your own energy to do the healing. Hers just jumpstarts your own." _

_"Mother!" "Aunt Mikomi!" Both girls turned to look at the older woman. She looked haggard, but the bruises Kagome had seen minutes before were completely gone. _

_"I failed to see that Kagome's powers weren't just concentrated in one area. Hopefully I will not repeat the mistake." _

**-- End Flashback -- **

Kagome and her aunt had had a long discussion concerning Kage and how she had appeared. They had finally come to the conclusion that Mischa had been dying, and since her demon blood was rather attached to life, it took completely over, leaving a new persona in charge of Mischa's body. Not wanting a repeat attack, the two priestesses had cobbled together a defense they were relatively sure would stop the youkai from again taking control.

Kagome twirled the dog tags between her fingers and studied her unconscious cousin's face. Mischa still had no recollection of the incident. It had been three years; Kagome doubted it mattered anymore.

The spells imbued within the dog tags those few years ago still worked perfectly. Mischa thought the dog tags only held an illusion spell to hide her hanyou features. She wasn't entirely wrong, but the illusion spell was only an excuse for the girl to never remove the chain.

Each time Mischa's infamous patience was pushed to its limit, or pain from wounds overrode her senses, and her eyes started to take that silver sheen again, Kagome's powerful miko energy would react to the hike in youki and subtly purify the excess. Mischa was usually left with a migraine from hell after the experience, but better a passing pain than Kage reappearing and taking more potshots at her miko relatives.

"How long was I out?"

Kagome jumped, startled at the sudden noise. She felt stupid for not noticing Mischa had regained consciousness. "Ah, not long. Maybe ten minutes."

Mischa sat up. "Can I have my tags back now?"

Kagome grinned, handing the woman her knife but playfully keeping the tags out of reach. "You're already human. Why do you need the illusion?"

"People aren't blind, Kagome. Anyone who knows me-"

"Wouldn't recognize you. Brown eyes, different facial structure, different voice. You're probably another of my many cousins."

"Souta and I are your only relatives of this generation," Mischa calmly pointed out.

"Then we just brush it off as coincidence. You're the real Mischa right now, anyway." Both girls stiffened at her words. 'Oh damn, I just told her that her that being human made her real. I didn't mean it like that. I just meant her human disguise wasn't really her.'

Mischa bowed her head, bangs falling to hide her eyes. "I'll see you back at the shrine, Kagome." She stood, sheathed the knife, and walked quietly back down the street.

She wasn't going to leave her here alone again. Kagome stood and ran after the taller woman.

They said nothing the entire walk home.

Kagome wanted to say something, to explain she hadn't meant the words to be the way they sounded. That she meant the human illusion she constantly wore wasn't really who she was. But the crackles of pain she could see in Mischa's aura said no words were wanted right now.

Mischa said nothing before locking herself in the guest bedroom. From outside the door, Kagome could faintly hear the sound of a something being hit. She turned away from the door. No, now wasn't the time for apologies.


	7. Six: Genko

AN: Nothing too action-y in this chapter. Some questions will be answered here, just to keep you from panicking over what the hell is happening. And if you still have questions, ask and I'll see if I can't clear things up.

Disclaimer: All characters you don't recognize are mine, all the ones you do aren't.

**Chapter Six: Genko**

_"I do desire we may be better strangers."_

-William Shakespeare

**-- May 15, Tokyo, Japan --**

Birds twittered outside the window. Mischa glared at them, silently willing them to go bother someone else. Pink and orange light filtered into the room, telling her that the sun had only just begun to rise.

She stared up at the ceiling above the guest bed. Dawn and still human. How long would it last this time? She felt blind, deaf, nose-less. Not to mention old. Odd that transforming to her human form made her look her age.

_ ("I'm in enough trouble as it is that I'd rather not chase after jailbait.") _

How odd that a youkai would think that she was the age she looked. Though he was right; for a hanyou, she was an adolescent. She wouldn't be considered an adult by youkai society for another five years, though by human standards she'd been an adult for the past seven.

Not that age kept them from giving her the impossible task of keeping a descendant of Midoriko alive and well. All of eighteen years old, and the moment she stepped foot outside of the Niigata Prefecture, she was waylaid by youkai lords and told that they had a task for her. The only reason she had accepted was because the girl was family, and wolves were unfailingly loyal to and protective of family.

Her youkai family shielded her from the task concerning her mortal relatives. How very strange. It was one thing to go to Lord Kouga for permission to speak with his forgotten granddaughter and quite another thing to enter a train and ask a young woman to look after family while she was in town.

That didn't keep her father from blowing his top when she sent a letter home explaining the situation. Her mother was not surprised, as usual. Sometimes Mischa hated the fact her human family came with magic in their veins. In made being hanyou even more impossible to bear.

_("Just think, puppy, if you were a human, you'd be some sort of magician and able to fight back. And if you were a youkai, we wouldn't beat you in the first place.")_

Bastards. Honorable bastards who only beat her in front of witnesses, but bastards all the same. Had her mother not been who she was, and her grandfather who he was, there was no doubt in her mind she would be dead.

Had she been in a calmer state of mind, she would remember that the childhood torture by her peers taught her to shield her ki, hide her scent, run faster than any of the true demons who lived there, how to fight. Nor had all of the other pups picked on her, though few had made any move to help her. But all it felt like now was that they had taught her how to be afraid, to bleed, to feel pain.

Lions drop their young down a cliff. It reflected the youkai way of raising their young. Fend for yourself, as the weak do not survive in the demon world.

Though Mischa privately thought the human way of raising children wasn't any better. Parents wanted to be friends with their children more than they wanted to raise their children to be good adults.

How would she raise children, though? Certainly not the literal 'feed them to the wolves' her family had done. Had she hidden behind her mother's status as miko, she would have been better off, but she was too proud to hide.

Who would have a hanyou, though? Only the Higurashi family accepted her as she was. But they didn't truly understand what it was to be part demon, either.

_("You're the real Mischa right now.") _

Common sense dictated that the words spoken weren't the words meant. That Kagome didn't mean to point out she was only half human and unaccepted in both societies. That she didn't think Meirin Mischando needed to be treated differently because of her half-breed status. But common sense never could win out against human emotions.

Kagome had told her she was real now. That her human self was real. What was she normally? A freak? Kagome had inadvertently poured acid on festering wounds.

Festering wounds. She'd never escape her past, would she? How odd that those few times she had accidentally been changed human, her youkai family accepted her more readily than they did Kouga's hanyou granddaughter. The only reason she survived birth was because of the pack's respect for her grandfather.

She was currently the baby of the family. The youngest. The only daughter of the pack leader's youngest son, who himself was the black sheep of the family even before she came along. The eldest of this generation in a long line of human mages. The metaphorical skeleton in both family closets. How lucky for her that her human family didn't care that she was half demon. How unfortunate for her the youkai side of the family more than made up for the love she received from the human side of the family.

She rolled over onto her stomach. She hated these times. Bad enough she turned human once a month, she didn't need run-ins with uncontrolled purification energy on top of it. Each time it had been accidental, or so her miko relatives claimed, but it was sensory deprivation and emotional overload for anywhere between three hours and a week. She liked the fact the demon blood cut back on her emotions.

What kind of hogosha was she that she couldn't even protect herself from her ward?

Though the fact that she was immune to the usual effect of an overload of purification energy spoke for something.

A knock on the door startled her out of her thoughts. She wanted her sense of smell back.

"Door's unlocked," she called out, sitting up on the bed.

Kagome tentatively stuck her head in through the doorway. It looked like she was checking the room for damage. She also looked to be right out of bed, judging by the state of disrepair her hair was in.

"Nothing's broken. What do you want?" She didn't mean to sound so harsh, but neither was she happy with her cousin.

"To apologize for my words yesterday afternoon. They were ill chosen. I meant that your illusion spell isn't who you really are, that this," Kagome waved her hand towards the illusion-less Mischa, "is who you are, whether human or hanyou. I didn't mean to throw your race in your face."

It was hard to stay angry with Kagome. And Mischa knew that Kagome hadn't meant what she said. She had been panicky over her run-in with the youkai, and she wasn't used to having to watch what she said. Besides the obvious 'never mention magic' rule. But it didn't stop the words from hurting.

"I know," she said softly.

"I'm sorry."

"It'll be all right. I just needed some time to think."

Kagome stood nervously in the doorway. Mischa wondered if she was waiting for her to lash out. She had little control over her emotions while human, so it was a viable concern. Mischa waited for Kagome to gather her thoughts.

"We never did have that sake," Kagome started. She probably didn't want Mischa moping around in her room.

"I don't drink this early in the morning." She had never been one for alcohol, but sometimes there was a need for it. Now wasn't one of those times.

"Up for a walk, then?"

"I guess." She slipped off the bed to go through her bags for clothes.

"I'll just grab a shower and get dressed then."

Something told Mischa Kagome wanted to have a long conversation about what the hell was going on. Mischa wondered how long she could hold her off. Probably not very long. All Kagome had to do was get angry and yell at her to explain everything, or start crying and say nobody trusted her. Perhaps it was simply a matter of telling her something. Just not everything.

Mischa slipped out of her pajamas and into her usual brown clothes. She could faintly hear the water start running in Kagome's bathroom.

She padded quietly down the hall to Souta's room to get Ayame's number for him.

**-----**

There was someone following them. Kagome thought it better to pretend he wasn't there.

"You mean to tell me that youkai wasn't going to kill me, he was going to kidnap me?"

"I'm the one they want dead. As hanyou go, I'm young and weak, and as humans and youkai go, I'm useless, since I _am_ hanyou and can't use magic. You, on the other hand, are like some sort of power generator. We could use you to light up city blocks during blackouts." Mischa winked at her, eyes flickering to the corner of her eye and then back to Kagome. She knew someone was out there too.

"But human and demon magic don't mix. Especially miko magic! That's like the antithesis of youkai magic."

"And human blood and youkai blood don't mix either. And me the daughter of a miko and a wolf."

"Are you trying to say that it's possible to combine human magic and youkai magic? That would mean hanyou could use magic, and everybody knows that's impossible. I don't know much about demon magic, but I know how to sense the difference between it and youki. And while you have some youki, you have no demon magic."

"No. I don't know much about magic, but I know that's impossible. I'm telling you that they want the actual _power_ itself, before it's filtered through your blood." Mischa's head tilted a bit to the side, letting Kagome know their shadow had gotten closer.

"What's that supposed to mean? How are they going to do that?"

"That's all I've figured out so far. It's not like I've had a lot of time to do this."

"So what now?" Their shadow had gotten so close Kagome could hear his light footsteps. Kagome raised her eyebrows to motion behind them.

"Wait until an extra set of hands arrives, I'd imagine." Mischa nodded her head faintly.

"Okay."

Both girls whirled, pulling fists back to punch- no one. There was nobody there. Mischa caught on first and looked down. "No way," she whispered, dropping her fist.

Kagome looked down. Looking back up at her was a faintly familiar girl with a long black braid and large bright aquamarine eyes. She looked to be about eight, but she was the scrawniest eight-year-old Kagome had ever seen.

"Good morning, Kage!" the girl chirped. Kagome froze. She remembered where she had seen the girl before. Yesterday outside the bar, right before the youkai showed up.

_("Have you seen another girl around who looks just like you? Her name's Kage.") _

It hadn't hit her then the girl was looking for Mischa. The Kage hadn't even clued her in.

"Trouble," Mischa whispered. "Kain. I should have realized-" Whatever she should have realized went unspoken as she collapsed against her cousin, hands clutching her head.

Kagome caught her awkwardly, surprised at her cousin's fall. "Mischa? What's wrong?"

The girl giggled, ignoring Mischa's strange behavior. "Guess Kage wasn't expecting to see me in Tokyo. She should've, though!" The girl told Kagome. "She can't hide from me forever!"

"What are you talking about?" Kagome asked, struggling to keep from falling over as her cousin leaned more of her weight onto her. She wasn't sensing any actual pain from Mischa, but her ki was flickering with brown and silver as _something_ happened.

The girl's cheerful eyes moved from studying Mischa to look at Kagome. "Have we met before? You smell familiar."

Youkai. Of course. Only a child, though. "I believe you asked me about someone named Kage yesterday."

The girl cocked her head to the side. Kagome thought it was pretty cute. "That must be it."

Mischa groaned and pulled herself off of Kagome, rubbing one hand against her forehead. "Trouble-chan, what are you doing here?"

The girl grinned brightly. "Looking, of course! It's like a giant game of, ah, what do the humans call that game where they make a checklist of stuff to find?"

Mischa shrugged, pulling her dog tags out of Kagome's pocket. Kagome noticed with alarm pale pink stripes were forming on Mischa's cheek. She never handled the transition well.

The girl stood on tiptoe to look closer at Mischa. "Wow, Kage, when did you get those? Only youkai are supposed to have them! Did you finally lose your temper and go all evil on us?" The girl sounded excited at the thought.

"No, Trouble, I did not. It is a long story, and none of your business."

The girl's eyes flickered towards Kagome, then back to the stripes. "Huh."

"Mind introducing me, Mischa?" Kagome drawled out.

Mischa pulled the chain over her head. "Apologies, I forget you do not know the demons I do. Kags, this is the genko kit Kain Chame. Trouble, this is my cousin Higurashi Kagome."

"Pleased to meet you," the girl said with a large grin, following youkai custom and not addressing Kagome by name. Kagome refrained from commenting, thankful the child hadn't called her miko.

"The pleasure's all mine," Kagome said, grinning back. "What's a genko kit?"

The girl giggled. "Kit is for kitsune child! I'm only sixty-eight." Mischa snickered as Kagome's eyes virtually popped out of her head.

"Sixty-eight? And you look like a kid?"

"You didn't catch on with me?" Mischa asked with a raised eyebrow. "Age goes differently with demons."

"I'm not going to be an adult until I'm two centuries old," the girl said in a confidential whisper.

"Wow." Mischa didn't look quite as impressed as Kagome did. But then, she probably knew it already. "So how many other youkai should I be expecting, Mischa?"

Mischa looked puzzled. "It should have been just Inu-Yasha. Why _are_ you here, Trouble?"

"It's a long story, best told over breakfast. I hear they've got a McDonald's near here! Did you know Americans eat bread and cheese and ham for breakfast? They call it a McMuffin." This seemed very awe-inspiring to the youkai child.

"And the other story will be how you two know each other, yes?" Kagome's voice made it sound like an order and not a question. Chame giggled and Mischa shrugged slightly.

They continued walking.

"All the youkai in the prefecture end up passing through the farm sooner or later. It is the natural homeland of the taiyoukai of the North. Trouble and her father showed up one day, stayed a couple years, wandered off, came back, wandered off. The usual." Chame giggled again. Kagome wondered if the girl giggled at funerals.

"That's one way of putting it, Kage."

That reminded her. "Why do you call Mischa Kage, Chame-chan?"

The girl looked thoughtful for a while, then finally said triumphantly, pointing up a finger, "Because she's good at hide-and-seek!"

Mischa slapped a hand to her forehead in exasperation and Kagome stopped walking to look down at the girl. "Good. At. Hide. And. Seek." She repeated slowly, voice think with disbelief.

"Gods," Mischa muttered under her breath.

"Yeah!" The girl said, not at all phased at Kagome's disbelief. "Though it was a weird game of hide-and-seek. It was backwards hide-and-seek. Mischa would hide and everybody else would try to find her." An odd look came into Mischa's eyes. The kit noticed this, and continued on in her cheerful young voice, "I think the Americans call it Sardines." The look in Mischa's eyes disappeared and the girl grinned toothily up at the two. Kagome wondered what it was that had Mischa so alert about the girl's explanation.

"You know a lot about the Americans," Kagome noted as they continued their walk to Chame's McDonald's. 'Reverse hide and seek. Trust Americans to come up with something backwards.'

"That's where Dad and I were before we moved back to Japan. Dad liked it there because he didn't stand out as much. I don't understand why Japanese humans only have black hair. It gets boring. No offense," she said to Kagome.

Kagome grinned. "You've got black hair too, Chame-chan."

"It's from my mother. Dad was a redhead."

"Was?" Kagome asked. Mischa looked to be more attentive than usual.

The girl's ever-present grin faded. "He was killed a few weeks ago."

"I am sorry to hear that," Mischa said suddenly. "I never did thank him."

Kagome opened her mouth to ask what Mischa needed to thank her for, but the hyperactive kit spoke faster. "Dad was always looking out for the underdog," Chame told Mischa. "Just the fact you're talking to me would be enough for him." Kagome closed her mouth. Something told her that Chame's father had rescued Mischa from something and that the two did not want to bring it up.

"What brings you to Tokyo?" Kagome asked, changing the subject.

"I'm looking for my brother." An irritated look came to Mischa's face, but Kagome didn't have the time to ask about it as the girl continued to speak. "He ran away from home before I was born, but he should know about our parents' deaths, and since he's an adult know, he's supposed to be my guardian."

"Ran away from home before you were born? Then how do you know where to find him?"

"Chase down rumors of kitsunes, of course."

"But what about what he looks like? You've never met him." Kagome knew it was a stupid question the moment she stopped talking.

"We're family, silly. We smell alike. Why do you think I mistook you for Kage?" Kagome wondered why the kitsune would want Mischa's help. Wouldn't the full-blooded youkai have a better sense of smell?

"Your father taught you better manners, Trouble," Mischa said in a clipped voice.

Chame stuck her tongue out at the tall woman. "Ask a stupid question, get called stupid."

They arrived at the McDonald's with no further comments on the past. Instead, Chame and Kagome spent the rest of the walk discussing the sugar content in various sweets they liked. Mischa looked a bit green by the time they reached the restaurant.

**----- **

Boredom was a terrible thing. Life was supposed to be a fun game, but when it wasn't your turn to go, time went horribly slow.

He didn't even like McDonald's. But for some odd reason, it was the best place to get reception for his cell phone at the time of day his boss called him. Far too early for any self-respecting kitsune to be out of bed. Not that his boss should be calling him today. He was still annoyed at being lectured by someone he assumed to be a subordinate. Why had he even bothered coming here?

As if he worked for the man for anything other than a way to protect his family. Turning in the hated cell phone would be a joy. He knew the stupid thing had a tracking device on it.

Familiar laughter reached his ears. He looked up from his French fries to see three dark haired girls walk in.

Small, medium, and large. Youkai, human, hanyou. It was a bit funny. One stood close to six feet, the second was not much over five, and the tiny girl between them didn't even reach four. What were those two doing up this early?

All three heads turned in his direction. He was expecting that. Cobalt blue eyes glared, smoky gray-blue looked confused and slightly glazed, and innocent aquamarine looked shocked. He was expecting the first two reactions, but why would a youkai child be surprised to see another youkai in a McDonald's?

His eyes reflected the same shock when he heard her whisper, "Daddy?" The hanyou looked down at the girl, then back at him. Sympathy flickered through her eyes, but he wasn't sure who it was directed at. The miko hadn't caught the whisper and just looked confused. He was a bit confused as well- he didn't have any children. Yet.

"What's he doing here?" The miko asked.

"Eating."

The hanyou had such a wonderful grasp of the spoken word.

"No he's not. I think he's glaring at the fries. Have you ever tried this place's fries? Everybody knows they're not edible."

He was pretty sure the women knew he could hear them.

"Then I have no idea."

The child started walking towards him.

"That's not Shippo," the hanyou told the girl.

And that was clue enough as to who the girl was and why she had said what she did.

"Who's Shippo?" The miko asked.

"Their father."

"Their? You mean 'I'm not Shimura'-san over there is the brother she was talking about?"

"Yes."

He stood and walked over to kneel in front of the girl. It was rather obvious, now that he thought about it. With the exception of her eyes, she looked much like his mother. But then again, it wouldn't be obvious for the same reason- he didn't like thinking about the genko woman.

Neither youkai made any move to speak. But then, they had never met each other before and didn't know what to say.

"The workers are giving us weird looks."

"We should give them something to do." The hanyou dragged the miko up to the counter to order food.

The girl's eyes started watering. He really didn't like people crying. Laughter was so much better.

"What is the matter, kit-chan?"

She jumped into his arms and started sobbing. "They killed him looking for you," she said into his shirt.

He stood up, the sobbing child still in his arms. They were still after him then. Interesting that they'd think his father would know where he was. He hadn't seen the fox in close to a century.

"Chame," was the hanyou's barely audible whisper as the miko gave her order.

"Thank you," was his just as inaudible reply as he took her outside to speak privately. It wouldn't do to have the hanyou and miko eavesdropping.

**----- **

"Since when were you nice to people who ticked you off?" Kagome asked her cousin as they sat inside the McDonald's eating barely edible muffins. Mischa was looking out the window at the two kitsunes sitting on a bench, speaking quietly. Kagome wondered how long they would be talking. It had already been an hour and she was getting a bit bored. Though looking at the redhead was very nice.

"Family is important. The child has no one now, and if it means doing him a favor, so be it. She needs someone to look after him, and I've never known a kitsune to turn his back on family in need."

"But she said he ran away from home."

"That's different from this."

"She's a cute kid. They don't look very similar. Are you sure he's who she was looking for?"

Kagome meant what she said. Whoever he was, he was tall, gorgeous, and had very red hair. Chame had none of those, though Kagome figured she'd probably be the first two when she reached maturity. But black hair didn't turn red with age.

"He looks very much like his father."

"I thought kitsunes all had red hair. Why doesn't she?"

"She's a black fox. It's the reds and the golds that have red hair. Blacks don't. Read some of the shrine literature if you're so intent on learning about kitsunes."

"What's with all the colors?"

"There are more than just different species of youkai, Kags. There are also subspecies. I am half black wolf. There are also gray, white, and brown wolves." Mischa paused to let Kagome sort it out.

"So he's a red kitsune and so is his father, but Chame-chan is a black kitsune?."

"No, he is gold. Black kitsunes are rare, and their children are not usually the same color."

Kagome noticed Mischa had yet to stop watching the two. She said, grinning, "I know he's easy on the eyes, Mi-chan, but you could look at me every once in awhile."

Mischa turned her head to look at her cousin's mischievous smile. "I am not watching him," she denied. "I'm looking at her. I have grown used to living with humans. When I first met Chame, I was smaller than her."

"Yeah, that is pretty weird. So are we waiting for them or should we head back to the shrine?"

Mischa said nothing, merely flicked her eyes to Kagome, then back to the two outside. Kagome looked out. Chame grinned, waved, and beckoned for them to join.

"I suppose that answers the question."

Mischa nodded and stood, gathering the used wrappers to throw them away. Kagome followed her.

"Just who are you, anyways?" Kagome asked the redhead. It was getting easier to think around him, but it still was hard to take your eyes off him. Kagome noted Mischa didn't seem to have the problem.

"The hanyou didn't tell you my name?" He asked, cocking his head to the side to look at Mischa.

"I didn't believe you."

He nodded in understanding. "Kain Matsuro, at your service," he said to Kagome, bowing slightly. Straightening up, he added with a wink, "Any service."

She blushed at the implication. "Why are you here?" Kagome wasn't sure which of the kitsunes she had addressed.

Chame answered. "I wanted to get Kage's help to find my brother."

Three sets of eyes turned to look down at Chame silently. Seconds later, all three started talking.

Disbelief. "You were going to ask a _hanyou_ to help find me?"

Mild annoyance. "My help? Finding that pervert?"

Bewilderment. "Why would she know who to look for?"

Matsuro and Mischa glared at each other, then looked pityingly at Kagome. Kagome wasn't too happy about it. Chame giggled.

Mischa sighed. "We went over this earlier this morning, Kags."

Kagome didn't quite catch what she was hinting at. She looked confusedly at the others.

Chame took pity on her. "I told you earlier, Higurashi-sama-"

"That's my mother. Call me Kagome." Come hell or high water, she'd get some youkai to call her by name.

Chame giggled. "_Kagome_-sama," she said with emphasis. Mischa rolled her eyes. "When people are related, they smell similar. Youkai are very good at hiding their scents, but you can always pick something up."

"I think I understand," Kagome said. With as sensitive a nose as canine demons had, it would be child's play for Mischa to tell if someone was related to Chame or not. But still, Chame should have been able to find the redhead for herself. Something else was going on here.

"You have to show me the city," Chame told Mischa. "I've never been here before, and I want to see everything!"

"No bars," Mischa said.

Chame stuck out her tongue. "You're just upset I can hold my alcohol better than you."

Kagome and Matsuro stared at their relatives. "Mind explaining that, genko?" Matsuro asked, ice dripping off every word.

Chame rubbed the back of her neck nervously. "Eh, heh heh." Chame looked up at Mischa for help. Mischa found the sushi vendor down the street very interesting to look at.

"Hanyou?"

Mischa looked at Matsuro, a question in her eyes.

"An explanation."

Cobalt stared down amethyst. "No."

"This could be awhile," Kagome said aloud.

Chame frowned, looking at the two glaring demons. "Looks like Kage's busy." She looked up at Kagome. "So, about that tour?"

Kagome watched Mischa and Matsuro for a bit, then sighed, shaking her head. "Want to see the city from Tokyo Tower? My railcard should be able to get the both of us there and back."

"Cool!" The girl squealed. "Let's go!"

Kit and miko left wolf and fox arguing over alcohol and its use by children.


	8. Seven: Clouds Gather Overhead

AN: Let me clear up the genealogy a bit. (I had to draw family trees and everything to figure this out.)

We have the basic Higurashi family from the series- Souta, Kagome, Mrs. Higurashi (Aiko here, since I don't know her name in the series), and Grandpa (who died the previous October of the story). The resemblance between Kikyou and Kagome can be explained as being genetic- they're related, hence the Shikon no Tama being in Kagome. (Which it still is, but I won't say more about that now.)

Mrs. Higurashi has an older sister, Meirin Mikomi, who is Mischa's mother. Mischa's father is Kouga's son. (A possible change from the series- Ayame finally managed to catch Kouga. The other change obviously the fact that Aiko has a sister. In the first go-round, Mikomi died in a car accident in her early twenties. Kagome's changing of the past also changed the events surrounding the accident.)

Shippo has two kids, Chame and Matsuro. Matsuro walked out on his family not long after Inu-Yasha got free of the Goshinboku. Shippo's father is Yoko, who you'll see much more of later. (And all the characters would like to agree that this is bad. Yoko is the closest thing to an omnipotent character in this story, but fortunately he's still only a side character and will not have a chance to run roughshod over my story. As for temperament- a cleaner-languaged Matsuro.)

Souta has a sort-of girlfriend named Ayame, who coincidentally has the same name as Kouga's mate. A thousand apologies if anyone gets thrown off track by that. (Ayame's family will be showing up in much later chapters. And don't worry if you get them confused. They do too.)

Hope that clears things up.

**Chapter Seven: Clouds Gather Overhead**

_"When in doubt, duck."_

--Malcolm Forbes

**-- May 15, Tokyo, Japan --**

Two figures sat on the ledge of the roof of a tall building. One was tiny, but balanced on a thin section of cement with the ease of someone with years of practice, feet dangling over the side unafraid. The other sat with her back to the city, feet firmly planted on the roof, hands holding onto the ledge as if afraid to let go and fall backwards into the traffic held up far below them.

"So how long have you lived in Tokyo, miko-sama?" Chame asked.

One eyebrow twitched. twitched. "All my life. And Chame-chan, please don't call me miko."

Chame frowned, turning from looking out over the city back to the woman beside her. "But you are one. It's not right for me to call you by name."

"I don't like being seen only as my title. If you address me by my name, I know you are asking me, and not just asking a miko."

"Aren't they the same thing?"

"Not really," Kagome said, climbing down from the ledge.

Chame followed her. "Then what should I call you? I won't call you Kagome, and you don't like being called miko."

Kagome sighed. "Why don't you pick a nickname like you did for Mischa?"

Chame frowned again. "But she's not Kage anymore."

Kagome froze.

_("Wow, Kage, when did you get those? Only youkai are supposed to have them! Did you finally lose your temper and go all evil on us?" She sounded excited at the thought.) _

( Just who was the wolf before she met you? Life in Tokyo must be very different than that farm she was raised on. _:: The voice sounded amused.) _

Kagome turned her head sharply to look down at the girl behind her. "What do you mean she's not Kage anymore?"

Chame shrugged, unable to find the words. "She just isn't. You'd have to see how she is at the farm to understand. I guess she's Musha now."

"Musha?" Kagome repeated, confused.

Chame blinked and grinned back up at her. "Isn't that what you call her?"

Kagome giggled. "No, it's Mischa. Who would go by the name Mischando, if they could help it? So I shortened it to Mischa."

"Yeah, it's even worse than Chameashi," the girl said, sitting down to rest her back against a wall.

"Chameashi?" Kagome sat down beside the girl.

"It's my full name. Chame's just a nickname, like Mischa."

"So what are you going to call me?"

"I don't know yet."

The two sat in silence, watching the clouds. Kagome noted the gray clouds from earlier days had yet to disappear. The summer was looking to be very wet.

"Do you think Mischa has killed your brother yet?" Kagome asked.

"She probably just walked off without him. I get the feeling my brother is like Dad and likes pretty girls a bit too much. And Kage's not one to stand that for very long."

"Why is that, do you know? She's never explained it to me." Kagome wasn't sure if she wanted an answer- if the girl did know, it meant she knew much more about Mischa than Kagome did, but if Chame didn't know, both of them would be stuck wondering.

Chame shook her head. "She was like that when I met her. By now, you've probably known her longer than I have. We only stayed on the farm for five or six years."

"What's so important about the farm? You make it sound like every youkai has been there."

"Consider it the youkai version of a prefecture capital. Kouga, the heir to the Northern Lands, dwells there. It's also way back in the hinterlands, so very few humans have come across it, making it a perfect meeting place. So if you're in the area, you drop by to see who else is there."

"The Northern Lands? What does that mean?"

Chame's eyes sparked with something close to triumph. "The explanation to that is a very long story. Do you want the abridged one everyone knows, or something closer to the truth?"

"The truth is always best," Kagome said.

"Ha," the kitsune disagreed. "But I'll tell you anyway. The story begins with the kami and the youkai living in the Heavens, millennia ago. It was a relatively peaceful time- the humans were barely out of the trees, and the youkai were kept docile by the rule of Ryujin, the great Dragon Emperor. And then one day he died. No one knew how. The kami blamed the youkai and the youkai blamed the kami. Battle waged in the Heavens between the kami, led by his four great counselors- Byakko, Suzaku, Seiryu, and Genbu- and the youkai- led by Suzaku's son, the Kitsune no Taishou, the Inu no Taishou, and the Ookami no Taishou."

"Don't they have names?" Kagome interrupted. "Those are just titles- the leader of the foxes, the leader of the dogs, the leader of the wolves."

Chame huffed impatiently. "This was ages ago. Not even the youkai remember their names. Except the taiyoukai, probably. Don't interrupt." Chame gave her a sharp glare, and Kagome made a zipping motion across her lips. "So, as I was saying, there is war in the Heavens. The youkai win, the counselors are killed in battle, and yet somehow the youkai are cast from the Heavens. The victorious leaders decide that, since they don't want youkai turning on each other, they should set up separate," Chame frowned, searching for a word, "kingdoms, for lack of a better word. The wolves would control the North, the firebirds would control the East, the kitsunes the South, and the dogs the West. They never bothered to really name the territories they controlled, so we simply say the Northern Lands, or the Western Lands. And all four have their own seats of power. The wolves stay in their farm in Niigata, for the most part. The phoenixes ruled out of Hiroshima, the kitsunes here in Tokyo, and the dogs from Kyoto."

Kagome pondered the kitsune's story. "That doesn't even make sense. Kyoto's further south than Tokyo."

Chame shrugged. "It's never made sense. I think Sesshoumaru-sama just liked living in the capital city. He was probably put out when it moved to Edo and Yoko-sama."

"So, if this history isn't the commonly accepted one by the youkai, why is it you know it, Chame-chan?" she asked shrewdly.

The kitsune blinked rapidly, and Kagome thought she looked surprised at the question.

"Well?" Kagome prodded.

"I'm related to Yoko-sama, the taiyoukai of the South. It's family history," the kitsune said.

"Ah," Kagome said noncommittally.

They sat silently for a time, Kagome considering the story, Chame watching the sun set with an unreadable expression on her face. The kit finally broke the silence. "Shin."

"What?"

The girl brought her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them. "That's what I'll call you. You don't seem to care that I'm a kitsune, or that Kage is hanyou, and just take us as we are. You know the truth and accept it, instead of calling the police or something. You have a pure heart. So you're Shin-sama now."

"Still the sama, Chame-chan?" Kagome asked, smiling at the girl's complicated explanation.

"You're still a miko," Chame said. "Maybe I'll drop it later."

"I'll accept that for now. We should probably go see who killed whom," Kagome said, standing.

Chame giggled. "They're much too proud to go so low as to kill someone just because they don't like them. The lords get upset about that." But she stood and followed Kagome anyway.

**-----**

"Why are you so interested in us?" Mischa asked the fox following her.

Matsuro smiled as he closed the distance between them. "I told you before, bored kitsune spots two pretty girls who know about the youkai world, boredom problem solved. Do you know what a relief it is to be able to make references to humans long dead and not get strange looks for it?"

"No," Mischa said as she moved further away.

"I suppose you wouldn't," he mused, "being a half-breed and all."

Mischa said nothing, irked at the reminder- as if she needed someone reminding her.

"Did you really know my father?" he asked.

Mischa looked over to see if he was leading up to another joke, but he looked serious. "He stayed with the wolf pack for a time."

"What was he like?"

"He was your father, you'd know better than I."

"I haven't seen him in the past century. And death changes you. So I'm wondering what he was like after my mother died."

It didn't hurt anything to tell. Plus the flirt was keeping his hands to himself, so she supposed he deserved something of a thank you. She frowned. "Sad, I suppose. Trouble seemed to keep him happy, but there were times when it was obvious he was... hurting."

"So am I anything like him?"

"How would I know? I barely know you." She stepped further away, sensing a change in the mercurial kitsune's mood.

He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer. "Well, you could get to know me a lot better," he whispered into her ear.

She pulled free, slapping him. "Keep your dirty thoughts to yourself, pervert!" He snickered as she disappeared into the crowd, muttering about promises, strangling foxes, and duties to- had she just said Midoriko?

Chame and Kagome came upon the still gawking kitsune. They both noted the red mark still staining his cheek.

"He's not dead," Kagome noted.

"But he did manage to run her off," Chame replied, illusion wavering slightly for her smile to show her fangs.

"That still counts as survival."

"I think I'd rather swim in sewage water than be on the receiving end of that slap. Kage never pulled her punches on the farm, and even with youkai healing, I'd have crushed bones for days."

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. It wasn't the time to hunt the wolf down and find out what she was talking about. "I'm standing right here, you know," he said, grinning over at them before Kagome had a chance to ask why Mischa would be fighting Chame.

"How long did you hold out before trying to cop a feel?" Chame asked.

"She hit me just five minutes ago."

Kagome worried about a child asking about that. "Chame-chan, aren't you a little young to be-" both kitsunes gave her amused looks. "Oh right. Old. Never mind then."

"Ah, Kagome-sama, your innocence amazes me. I can help you get rid of it," Matsuro offered.

Kagome blushed. "Ano, that's all right, I don't need your help."

"Can do it yourself?" he asked, his smile completely innocent.

Her blush deepened. "No wonder why she hit you," she muttered.

Matsuro laughed at both the blush and the retort.

Chame blinked a couple times, wondering what they had meant, then giggled. "I'll go find Kage," she offered. "Try to keep your hands to yourself, or else she could end up purifying something you'd rather keep." And with another giggle, she too faded into the crowd.

"You wouldn't really, would you?" he asked, looking worriedly at the miko currently staring into a store's window, admiring the beautiful dresses on display.

"Wouldn't what?" Kagome's look rivaled Chame's for mischief as she grinned over at him.

"Purify me. It's a serious threat for youkai, coming from a miko."

Kagome took pity on him. "No, I only purify youkai that are trying to kill me."

"Somehow, that doesn't make me feel any better," he whispered.

"What was that?" Kagome asked.

"I'll just have to curb my instincts then, ne, Kagome-sama?" He winked at her.

"Somehow I don't think that's possible. I'll pray for you."

"I'm not in the gods' good graces right now. I don't suppose you could put in a good word?"

"Hey, it's shrine maiden, not priestess. The gods don't actually talk to me."

"Well then, let's say we find a shrine and see if the gods know the difference between a miko and a priestess." He grabbed her hand and gently tugged her away from the window.

"Hm?" she said, still looking at one slinky red dress.

"You took my sister to see Tokyo's sights, now it's my turn. And I'm sure the bars will take me, even if they won't take the kit." It was kind of the hanyou to run off and leave the miko with him. It made it all the easier to interrogate the girl. Though it looked to like the wolf was the better source of information.

"Sure, I know just the place to go!" She dragged him off towards- was that a mall?

He sighed. The things he did for this job. And he wasn't even paid.

**-- May 15, near Ishikari, Japan --**

"I'm really sorry for not calling earlier, Ayame-chan."

"You better have a good reason, Higurashi Souta. You didn't even say good-bye before going off on this vacation of yours," Ayame's high voice came over the line.

Souta stared up at the sky, wishing for inspiration. Or else to be struck by lightning and not have to put up with this. Either would work.

"Ayame-chan, I didn't even know I was going on vacation until Mom had me in the taxi." Which was mostly the truth.

"And the reason why you haven't called?"

"Well, since Mom did the packing, I don't have my address book. And I don't have your new number memorized yet. Do you have to change your number every time you buy a new cell phone?" The last part came out as a whine.

"It keeps people on their toes. It also gives me a wonderful excuse to stop keeping in touch with people I don't want to talk to anymore."

Souta knew that was true. In the few weeks of their breakup last winter, she had changed her number twice and given neither number to him, which left him stuck with calling her house to try to reach her.

"I have a favor to ask." But how best to word it?

"If it's about another girl, Souta-kun, you can forget it."

He didn't understand why she was so paranoid about losing him to another girl. It wasn't as if he did anything but mild flirting with them. And looking. But Ayame was different. Ayame wasn't just for looking at or flirting with.

"It sort of is," he said slowly.

"Sooooouta-kuuun!" She wailed.

"It's about Kagome!" He said hastily, wincing at the high-pitched cry still ringing through his ears.

"And that quiet cousin of yours, right?" Ayame's voice had an odd tone to it- one he didn't hear very often from his vivacious friend. Fear. And something bordering on hatred. He only heard it the few times they spoke about her. It was worrisome. "No offense, but she creeps me out."

Souta rubbed the back of his neck. "Tell me about it," he agreed. He wished she would- just what had Mischa done that had Ayame so scared of her and her so angry with Ayame? It had been months and he still couldn't get it off his mind- apologizing just wasn't Ayame's style.

"Just what type of favor do you need?"

"I don't have enough money with me for a boat ticket. Or a plane ticket. And I don't want Mom finding out about it, so I was wondering if I could borrow the money from you. I can pay you back, I have the money at home."

"How is this about your sister?" Ayame sounded puzzled.

"I think she's in trouble. And I want to be home to see if I can help."

"I hadn't realized you were so paranoid, Souta-kun."

He supposed that was true. But his conversation with Mischa had kept playing in his head. They kept too many secrets from each other, the whole family did. And he was pretty sure they were all about to come falling down around them.

"Plus I really want to get to soccer camp. It's very pretty here, but also very boring."

"Now that sounds like the Souta I know." She giggled. "I'll think about it. I'll call you back."

Well, she hadn't exactly said no. "Thanks, Ayame-chan."

"Don't thank me yet, Souta-kun." And with that strange warning, she hung up.

Souta stared at the phone, listening to the droning dial tone. What was that about?

**-- May 15, Tokyo, Japan --**

Two figures sat at a table at an outdoor restaurant. Those few humans sensitive to disturbances in normal energy would note that the two gave off disturbing vibes. The even fewer youkai who happened to walk by would give the two odd glances, then cross to the other side of the street.

"It didn't work," the tri-colored hair man said to his green-haired companion.

"You just now noticed? How many attempts have you made on the girl only to have circumstances work against us?"

"Too many to count. Have you already started thinking on your next attempt?"

The second smiled in an unfriendly fashion, red eyes glittering. "It's already in the works. I think our problem is that we forget there is more than one descendant of Midoriko."

The first gave the other an odd look. "The hanyou is useless."

The smile grew broader and even less friendly. "The boy is not."

The first stared blankly until realization hit. "And if he proves to not have the power, holding him hostage will bring the girl to us."

"Precisely."

"But he is not even on Honshu. Our people are not so widespread that someone can just drop his assignment to gather the boy."

The second chuckled darkly. "He is coming to us."

"Interesting."

**-----**

Matsuro stared at the ceiling of the room, pondering the day's events. Shopping with a young girl was not what he had anticipated when he asked the miko to show him around. But at least she was kind enough to give him the couch in her living room for the night.

Though he hadn't expected the shrine to have wards against youkai spells, though in hindsight, he should have. His human illusion had disappeared the moment he stepped through the torii at the top of the staircase.

He grinned, recalling the look of pure fascination the miko had when his tails had appeared. Though he was used to being the one doing the groping, he certainly wouldn't complain if an attractive woman decided to pet him. Her blush when she realized what she was doing was even more amusing.

Naïve, even for a human. He thought over his earlier conversations with the girl.

Subtle one-on-one interrogation was his forte, but either the miko knew even less than he did concerning the subject or else she also knew the game. The hanyou, he knew, played the game rather well when it wasn't subjective. A sure sign of her half-breed status if she couldn't act impassive about things concerning her family. The miko was a bit too open with her emotions to be able to tell lies properly, so he could only assume the hanyou had told her nothing. At least he could report to his boss that he had spoken with the girl and that she knew nothing.

He growled softly. He didn't want this job. He hadn't wanted it when it was first offered, and had only taken it because of the threats that were offered after his first refusals. It was dishonorable to threaten innocents.

That reminded him of the innocent currently sleeping on him.

Chame was tired out from whatever it was she and the hanyou had done while the miko was with him. Rather amazing the hanyou hadn't chased them down after being told he was with the miko. She seemed to be overly protective of the girl. For good reason, he thought, recalling the distraction he had had to play the day before. Though the hanyou hadn't realized it yet, or else brushed it off as coincidence.

The wolf had collected her giddy, tired, somewhat drunk cousin and deposited the sleeping kit on him; a stern look in her eyes daring him to comment on the fact the furry youkai had been burrowed under her shirt.

Always being up for a challenge, he had, of course, inserted his foot into his mouth and promptly been punched for it. Watching her leave had been interesting- she had been rubbing her chest like it was hurting, and for a moment, he thought he smelled something burning. Too many things were going on with her for him to be able to figure them out.

A fluffy black tail flicked across his face, distracting him from his thoughts on his assignment. He smiled down at the sleeping fox on his chest.

He hadn't even known he had a sister. He hadn't really thought about it. It would seem obvious, as much fun as kitsunes got out of having sex.

She was adorable. Continually laughing and smiling, a true innocent, as far as a _kitsune_ could be innocent. Though once her mask had fallen and her sorrow showed. It was obvious that father and daughter had been close. How upsetting that he and his father had never been on the best of terms. Even more odd was the fact the hanyou had said Shippo seemed sad after his mate died. They had never gotten along well.

Both parents gone. He had found what was left of the family he left behind, only to discover they were dead due to him.

Kino had gone back on his promise. What hold did they have now? He had sworn service to the dragon, in exchange for his family to be safe. With his father's death, he was no longer Kino's pawn. But now wasn't the time to betray his knowledge. Better to destroy the dragon from within his organization, than to go the taiyoukai with the information. Either way was tantamount to suicide, but the former would give him the pleasure of seeing the look on the dragon's face as Matsuro killed him.

He looked down at the black fox curled on his chest, her two tails swaying softly, paws tucked up under her chin. One ear twitched as his breath passed over it. So very innocent.

**-----**

In a nearby room, two dark-haired women sat cross-legged at a low table. One was busy eating dinner, while the other sleepily combed her wet hair. Kagome much preferred a bath to a shower, especially at night. Soaking did wonders at relaxing her.

She wondered what had happened to make Mischa's aura flare so wildly. Not that it wasn't always changing, no matter how calm her face usually was.

"How was your day?" Kagome asked the irritated woman. Kagome thought it funny that Mischa always glared at her drink when she was annoyed.

"Long," Mischa said shortly.

"Why?" Maybe it wasn't best to try and further annoy her cousin. But she had been stuck for hours with a nosy, perverted, gorgeous youkai that made it impossible for her to think around, while Mischa got to play tag or something with his baby sister. Kagome deserved some revenge. Or else she owed Mischa a huge 'thank you' for the alone time with Gorgeous-san.

"You remember that time the brat had too much cookie dough?"

Kagome didn't see the point. All small children OD'd on sugar sooner or later. "Sure. He bounced off the walls for hours before crashing on the dining room table for a nap."

"That is how the kit is _normally_. Except without the sleeping part."

She still wasn't getting it. "Annnnd?" She drawled out.

Mischa turned her glare from her tea to Kagome. "You," she bit out, "gave her three bowls of ice cream before setting her on me."

Kagome giggled. Actually, it had been five, but Mischa seemed upset enough as it was. Though Kagome thought it would be fun to see how far the woman would go before throwing her plate at her. "Annnnd?"

Mischa merely glared at her.

Kagome smiled brightly. "Well, I thought it was funny. She was talking a mile a minute by the time she was done eating."

"My ears fell off ten minutes after she found me."

Kagome snickered.

"It was not a joke."

"Drink your tea, it will make you feel better." Kagome laughed outright at the look of utter disbelief on Mischa's face. "You know you're addicted to the stuff, admit it."

Mischa snorted.

"So, what do we do about them?" Kagome motioned to the living room, where Matsuro lay on the couch, sleeping, with a small black fox curled up on top of him.

Mischa turned to look in their direction, frowning slightly. Kagome noticed she had a look of intense concentration. Had she heard something? The look disappeared and she mumbled, "Drowning sounds good."

"Not funny, Mischa. She's just a kid, and he's way too gorgeous to kill."

"Would you quit it with how good-looking he is already? I can see that for myself and I'd rather not think about it." Mischa rubbed a hand on her forehead.

Kagome blinked. Had Mischa just admitted that she found someone attractive? Albeit in a very odd fashion. "You're being way grumpier than usual."

Mischa glared. "The kit is a reminder of days I would rather not think about. _He_," Mischa said grumpily, "is a single kitsune. Sleeping on your couch."

Kagome thought about that for a bit, but couldn't come up with anything. "So?"

"You know the legends. They're based off fact."

Kagome hated it when Mischa gave explanations that explained nothing at all. Was a straightforward answer too much to ask for from anybody?

She tried thinking about it, if only to give Mischa time to cheer up some. Mischa took the pause in their conversation as time to continue eating.

Grandfather's scrolls had come in handy, and she wondered why she had never bothered to read them before. What had they said about kitsunes that got Mischa so annoyed?

Fox demons were followers of Inari, the Shinto god of rice and food. According to legend, they were tricksters, neither good nor evil. They had their own code of ethics, and followed their concepts of right and wrong, which really depended on the kitsune. Rather like humans, Kagome thought.

Legend said they were shapeshifters and illusionists, but so far the only magic she had picked up from them was their hiding their youkai forms. Which they weren't right now, since the shrine's wards dispelled illusions. She wondered at their tails. Was it just a kitsune thing to have multiple tails? She blushed, remembering pouncing on Matsuro to pet one of his tails.

"I'm still not seeing the problem with a kitsune in the house."

Mischa sighed. "Kags, kitsunes are the symbol of passion and sexuality. Our ancestors didn't randomly assign those traits to them."

Kagome looked at the sleeping Matsuro and back at Mischa. "Should I be worried about him going after me in my sleep?" she asked in an amused fashion, countering the seriousness of her words.

Mischa rolled her eyes. "I'm serious, Kags. Just smiling at him is a sign of encouragement."

"Oh, but Mi-chan! Can't you just see yourself sleeping on a bed of gold fur? And he purrs!" Kagome asked in a singsong voice, giggling and pointing out Matsuro's five long gold tails.

Mischa choked on the tea she had been sipping and glared at Kagome after she finished coughing. Kagome didn't hear the low chuckling coming from the living room. "Gods, Kagome! Not while I'm drinking!"

"You'd definitely need to be drinking to loosen up enough to flirt back." Teasing Mischa was so much fun, and the conversation seemed to have cheered the hanyou up some.

Mischa rested her elbows on the table and hid her face in her hands. "I am not having this conversation," she mumbled into her hands. Mischa looked up. Kagome started. Was it just her imagination, or was that a faint blush spreading over Mischa's cheeks? "Just take the warning."

"Why aren't you worried about yourself?" Kagome asked, curious as to why Mischa would even bother to warn her about a guy, when she never had before.

"According to youkai law, I am not an adult. It would be like you hitting on Souta."

It was Kagome's turn to choke. "Hit on Souta? He's my brother! Ick!"

"Someone his _age_," Mischa hissed, slightly exasperated.

"Oh. I guess I understand." Not that that has ever stopped anybody before. She didn't sense anything truly evil about him, but there was enough of a rebel in him, she was sure he'd ignore any laws he didn't like.

Kagome watched as Mischa returned to her meal. She wondered what her cousin had been doing with Chame to make her forget to eat dinner at its appropriate time. It was, after all, getting close to midnight.

"When's your friend Inu-Yasha coming back?"

Mischa paused in wolfing down her food long enough to say, "He is not my friend. Probably tomorrow."

"What will we do then?"

"Find out why youkai are after your power and how they think they can even use human magic?"

"Are you telling me or asking me?"

"I am eating."

Kagome sighed.

"Why did you bring him back here?"

"He said he didn't have a place to stay for the night and asked if he could stay here."

Mischa suppressed a groan. Just how blind could the girl be? "And you believed him? And just offered him the couch?"

"Well he very well couldn't take the guest room. You're in there. Besides, he's got the kid to look out for, and you would know more than me about the pedophiles that roam the streets at night."

"The _kid_," she said, "could escape any of those nutcases with a wave of her fingers. Just because Trouble is little does not mean she is easy prey."

"I haven't seen her do anything but illusions. What would she know?" Kagome was having trouble coming to grips with the fact the cute little black fox sleeping on Matsuro's chest was a bright-eyed cheerful tiny kitsune girl her grandfather's age.

"Proper youkai magic, of course. Just because you forget you have powers does not mean everyone else forgets how to use it."

"I never asked for this."

Mischa poked her chopsticks in Kagome's direction. "It will only get worse. I do not know why they want you, but they will not stop just because you purified a couple of their goons."

"Do we have to talk about this now?"

Mischa glowered. Who was running now? Kagome claimed Mischa wouldn't accept her past, but Kagome wouldn't accept her present. But it wasn't the time for that argument. "Fine, I am sure you are tired. Go to bed. Maybe you will be in a better mood in the morning to discuss things."

Kagome sighed. They lectured each other so much about things that sometimes that seemed like it was all they did. "Maybe. Don't stay up too much later." She quietly walked through the living room, careful not to wake either of its occupants, and padded up the stairs to go to sleep.

Downstairs, Mischa stopped eating to stare at the kitsune still feigning sleep. He chuckled again, sensing her stare. "Didn't fool you, did I?"

"No," Mischa said. His breathing had quickened while he was waking, and he had calmed it to a different rate after realizing the conversation going on between the two was more fun to listen to than participate in.

Mischa returned to her eating. The kitsune continued to lay on the couch, eyes closed, either thinking or trying to get back to sleep. She wasn't sure which, nor did she particularly care. Just so long as he didn't start talking. She'd had enough of kitsunes babbling at her to last her a week.

"So just how old are you, hanyou? I haven't seen enough of your kind to be able to tell age. You can't be too old if the miko is your first cousin."

Mischa preferred the silence. Now that the nuisance was awake, he was going to continue on with the questions until she gave up on evading his questions and fled. She sighed, knowing he'd continue to talk until she said something. "Older than her."

"That's not helpful."

Mischa shrugged. Silence was best when dealing with youkai, she'd learned. If you were quiet enough, they wouldn't see you. Not to mention, she had done her talking for the day and hell if she wasn't going to give up the only food she'd had since her early breakfast to answer questions for a kitsune who had yet to explain why he was playing with them.

"I appreciate the compliment, backhanded as it was."

What was he talking about now? "Pardon?"

He turned his head to flash a brilliant smile at her. "You know you can't resist me."

Mischa pointedly ignored him and finished off the last of her food.

"What, no witty comeback? I've met walls more talkative than you."

She imagined they would have to be pretty talkative walls. She stood, gathering her dishes and bringing them to the sink to wash.

"Inari-sama, you're boring," he said, exasperated.

"I try." She turned the water on, wondering how long it would be until he got bored with trying to pull her into a conversation.

"She speaks! Someone call the press."

Mischa rolled her eyes. "Not everyone is as talkative as you, red."

"I wouldn't want them to be. I just want _you_ to be."

Mischa snorted.

"Don't be like that, baby. I just want to get to know you better."

Mischa couldn't help but laugh at the mocking tone of voice he used.

"Never got that reaction before." He had said it to annoy her into yelling at him, but it obviously hadn't worked. He frowned.

She snickered as she placed the dish onto the drying rack.

"I know you're not mute, hanyou."

She turned from the sink to look coolly at him. "True. But that does not mean I need speak."

He turned his head to look back at the ceiling. "There are those you should speak to."

What was he hinting at? "You are not one of them."

He sighed and closed his eyes. Mischa turned back around to finish the dishes.

**-- May 16, a farm in the Niigata prefecture, Japan --**

Meirin Mikomi viewed the intruder with impassive dark brown eyes. Beside her, one of her nieces growled softly.

"You should never have returned, miko," the tiger youkai said angrily. "Your kind are not welcome on youkai lands."

"Need I remind you that my mate is youkai?"

"That freak was never right in the head, and taking a miko as mate is proof of that."

The angry redheaded wolf child's growls grew louder. "Do not speak so of the miko-sama. She has helped our kind more than you ever could, asking nothing in return except acceptance. And you cannot even give her that."

"Fukii," the miko scolded. "I do not seek reward." She turned her attention back to the tiger, eyes flashing blue for a second, and then returning to brown. The youkai flinched at the changing color. The miko was famous for her uncannily accurate predictions of the future, and they were always accompanied by her eyes flashing an unearthly blue. "Would you like me to tell you of your future, tiger? For I will not leave this place, and should you not leave, your future becomes set in stone."

"Do not threaten me with your tricks, miko," the tiger warned. "It is you who will be leaving. It does not matter if you leave on your feet or in a box." He drew his katana.

"Then you have chosen your path. I bear no responsibility for your death."

Fukii moved to attack the tiger youkai, but Mikomi's hand on her shoulder held her back. She looked up at her aunt. Brown eyes were filled with sadness as she looked down at the girl. Their attention was drawn back to the youkai as he roared a challenge and raced at the two.

Mikomi's eyes flashed blue again, and just as she would have been beheaded by his swing, she dropped to the ground, pulling Fukii with her. She muffled a groan. She was much too old to be having to deal with this.

"What is going on?" The tiger youkai froze at the new voice.

A tall, handsome youkai stepped out of the building they were in front of. His pitch-black hair was pulled back in a ponytail, while a brown headband kept his bangs out of his cobalt eyes. He looked to be about thirty, but his narrowed eyes held the look of centuries of life. Mikomi noted her father-in-law still insisted on wearing a fur skirt when not expecting visitors. Probably Ayame's doing; as she rightly pointed out, he had the legs for it.

She had long ago given up on understanding the idiosyncrasies of youkai.

He walked calmly to the woman and child on the ground and helped them up. The tiger merely stared, knowing that death was at hand. "Kouga-sama," he began.

"You dare try to kill one of my family?"

"The miko," the tiger tried again.

"Was accepted into our world thirty years ago. She has never killed beyond that in self-defense. That is more than I can say for you, Mokuto." Kouga took a single step towards the tiger. Mokuto followed the motion and stepped backwards. "Why do you move away, tiger? Are you so cowardly that you can attack two weak women, and yet will not face battle with a strong opponent?"

Fukii privately thought her grandfather was scarier with his fists than with the sword that he had left in the house. Five sharp claws versus one sharp sword, she knew which did more damage.

The tiger's eyes grew wider and he took another step back.

"That's what I thought." So quickly Fukii could barely follow him, Kouga sprang at the tiger youkai and tore his head from his neck. Mikomi paled and looked away. Fukii watched the body drop with interest. How long until she would have that kind of power?

Kouga knelt and calmly wiped the blood on his claws on the dead demon's clothes. He stood and said to Mikomi, "Get rid of that."

Mikomi moved slowly towards the dead body. She placed a hand on its chest and it disappeared in a flash of pink light. Fukii was slightly nervous at the use of purification energy, but knew her aunt would never hurt her. Mikomi stood.

"I don't see what their problem is," Fukii said. "It's not like she's ever gone out of her way to kill youkai. She gives them every chance to leave her in peace."

"The weak-minded can never accept what is different," Kouga told his granddaughter.

"They are testing us," Mikomi said, staring with unseeing blue eyes at where the youkai had lain. "This is only the beginning."

Kouga scowled. Fukii's thoughts were divided between understanding why her aunt's eyes were still blue and what about her speech so upset her grandfather. It was not like there were many youkai able to hurt him. 


	9. Eight: Unclear Relationships

**Chapter Eight: Unclear Relationships**

"_The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right time, but also to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."_

**-- May 16, Tokyo, Japan --**

Inu-Yasha was surprised to see two kitsune youkai eating breakfast and joking with the miko as he followed the wolf hanyou into the kitchen. All three looked up and smiled.

"Hanyou," the redhead said, his smile not reaching his eyes.

"Fox," he ground out.

"Koinu!" The smaller kitsune said, hopping up to give him a bear hug, Mischa barely managing to jump out of the way of getting bowled over by the two-tailed black blur.

"Oh hell no." He roughly detached the kit from his waist. "How many fucking times do I have to tell you to stay the hell off of me?"

"Watch your language around children," Kagome scolded.

Chame giggled, unworried by the rough greeting, still lifted in the air by Inu-Yasha. "You're just going to have to keep repeating yourself, because I'm going to keep doing it!"

He set her down. "Why the hell are there two kitsune here, wolf?"

Matsuro flinched, Chame growled before flicking her eyes Matsuro's way questioningly, Mischa's eyes grew wide and she shook her head to warn him off, and Kagome look puzzled. "Do you not like kitsune either? They're guests of mine, just as you are."

"Feh." He sat down on the floor near the table, intent on ignoring the two foxes.

Chame giggled. Mischa sighed and sat down beside Kagome.

"How is the icicle?" She asked suddenly.

"A complete bastard as always. Why do you even need to ask?"

She shrugged.

"Who's the icicle?" Kagome asked.

"My half-brother, Sesshoumaru," Inu-Yasha said.

His acquired family name clicked with something in Kagome's mind. "Takara Sesshoumaru? The owner of Nishi Industries?" Also taiyoukai of the West, according to Chame. What would that make Inu-Yasha?

"Yes. And I'd rather not talk about him."

Kagome ignored the request. "Wow, you're related to one of the most powerful men in the business industry." Kagome paused suddenly. "There are famous youkai? And they could be in government, or actors, or business-" she trailed off, staring at Inu-Yasha. He fidgeted nervously under her gaze. They were too much like the first Meirin he had met for his comfort. The boy had had a very steady, troubling gaze for a child.

"Are you sure she's a miko?" Matsuro asked sotto voce. "She certainly has trouble believing demons are helping to run the government."

"Or the economy," Chame added helpfully in the same low voice.

"She doesn't believe me," Mischa explained. "So I just let her figure it out on her own. It is easier on the ears."

"No wonder she needs a babysitter," Inu-Yasha muttered.

Chame's eyes flickered to where she had seen the demon markings on Mischa's face. The word babysitter ran through her mind, but failed to latch onto something.

"What are you guys whispering about?" Kagome asked, having missed the entire interchange.

"Demon stuff. I've been out of the loop for the past couple weeks, what with looking for Musha," Chame chirped.

Kagome looked at the girl suspiciously, but Chame's face looked innocent and she let the subject drop.

"You still haven't said why you've got a couple of kitsune sitting at your table eating breakfast," Inu-Yasha said grumpily.

"Would you prefer I let them starve?" Kagome asked.

"Yes," Mischa muttered.

"No comments from the peanut gallery," Kagome said, poking Mischa in the side. "Just because you don't like kitsune doesn't mean you have to be rude."

Mischa just snorted.

Matsuro sighed. "The one time my charms and good looks fail me."

Kagome and Chame giggled. Mischa growled softly.

"Do I want to know?" Inu-Yasha asked.

Matsuro turned his smile on Inu-Yasha. "I don't suppose you're single, mutt? Both the wolf and Kagome-sama have turned me down."

"What the fuck?" Inu-Yasha yelled, leaping to his feet. Kagome stared at the older kitsune as if he had grown an extra head, and Chame laughed. Mischa thought it safer to not make any noise, intent on keeping the fox's attention away from her. "Fucking fox!"

"Yes?" Matsuro asked, smile firmly in place, a look of humor in his eyes.

"See what I meant, Kags? Foxes will do anything." Mischa didn't bother to lower her voice, knowing the rest of the room's occupants would hear her however quiet she spoke.

Kagome blushed. "I didn't realize-"

"He's just messing with the hanyou's head," Chame added. "Foxes and dogs are natural enemies, even as youkai."

Inu-Yasha was currently cussing up a storm, shaking a fist in Matsuro's direction, with Matsuro adding lewd comments every so often.

Mischa rubbed her forehead after one particularly vivid comment. Kagome blushed as Chame said, "I wonder where he'd find rope long enough to do that."

"Enough!" Mischa said, her quiet voice dripping in ice. "Stop flirting and finish your breakfast."

Matsuro winked at the irritated wolf as Inu-Yasha shouted, "Like hell we're flirting!"

"Is he always this loud?" Kagome asked, watching the kitsune and her cousin wince at the noise level. Kagome had to admit the noise was beginning to bother her as well.

"He is frequently louder," Mischa said, sipping her tea.

"Hurry up eating so you can leave," Inu-Yasha told the kitsune.

"Koinu no baka," Chame muttered. "We're staying to help! Musha's only a hanyou, and only an idiot wouldn't help a guardian in trouble."

"You've got to be kidding me," he said.

"Guardian? What's with all the titles?" Kagome asked. Maybe youkai were allergic to using a person's name, Kagome mused, and these titles they thought up were like medication.

"You're the guardian," Inu-Yasha told her shortly. "Gods know what the hell a weak human like you could be guarding."

"But I'm not guarding anything," she said.

"Idiot." Both hanyou spoke at the same time.

"Hey, I'm not an idiot!" Kagome said.

"I was talking about the stupid mutt," Mischa said. "He couldn't keep his mouth shut long enough to swallow spit." She turned her glare on Chame. "You are not much better."

"What are you talking about? Is this some giant 'keep the miko out of the loop' conspiracy?" Kagome asked.

The other four exchanged irritated looks. None looked to be pleased with anybody else.

"Yes," Chame and Inu-Yasha said.

"Like hell it is," Kagome said angrily and stormed out of the room.

"Shit," Mischa said.

"Any of you three want to clue me in?" Matsuro asked. Mischa and Inu-Yasha glared at him, their answer written clearly in their angry stares. Chame looked apologetic, but shook her head no. "I see," he said in a tight voice. He stood to go find the missing miko.

"Just... shit." Mischa banged her head down on the table.

"I didn't know she didn't know," Chame said apologetically.

"This has got to be the shittiest job ever. I don't even know the wench and she's pissed at me."

"She is not the only one mad at you," Mischa said, forehead still resting on the table. "I told you not to say anything."

"The kit started it," he said defensively.

"You are how old again?" she snapped.

"Koinu can go stick his head in a toilet bowl and flush!"

"Oi, midget, I'm older than you, so shut the fuck up. I don't need you telling me what to do."

Mischa let the argument pass over her, trying to figure out how she was going to talk her way out of this. Her cousin didn't like it when she wasn't told things she considered to be vitally important to know, and this was definitely high on the priority list. Too bad Kagome wouldn't see it as 'ignorance is bliss,' and would instead see it as a lack of trust. She trusted the miko enough for her to know when she was human, didn't she? But ignorance was safest in this matter, and even Mischa herself didn't know much about it.

She was absolutely screwed.

**-----**

Kagome sat with her head in her knees, her back against the Goshinboku. For once in the many years she had gone to it for refuge, she found no peace in its presence.

'Keep the miko out of the loop' conspiracy. She hadn't meant it too seriously, but they had. They knew something about her that she didn't, and none of them looked to be near to telling her what it was.

Didn't Mischa trust her? Chame called her pure and innocent, Matsuro called her naïve, Inu-Yasha kept calling her an idiot, and all seemed to fit. She was an idiot for ever thinking Mischa was different than the other youkai who kept attacking her, that the kitsune weren't after whatever power they thought she held. Who knew why the hell Inu-Yasha had agreed to help. It obviously wasn't out of the goodness of his heart.

She sniffled, eyes watering.

Guardian. Wouldn't she know if she was guarding something?

The lords they had spoken of. Was she some pawn they were playing with, the four surrounding her sent to confuse her from knowing their schemes?

Well it was working. She was confused, hurt, and had no one to turn to. Mischa suddenly a stranger keeping too many secrets, mother and brother sent away, her friends all on vacation in different countries.

"Can I sit here?"

Kagome looked up to see a serious-looking redhead looking down at her. Kitsune liked to play games, grandfather's scrolls had said. Was he just playing a game and had dragged her into it?

"I can't stop you."

"I think you could," he said, but he sat down beside her anyway.

"I'm just some stupid naïve human wench, aren't I? You're all laughing at me for not knowing things about myself I should know." She choked back another sob.

"You're naïve and human, I'll admit, but I doubt you're stupid, and I'll say nothing about the wench remark. Dogs aren't known for their tact."

She didn't smile at the comment. He supposed it hadn't been very funny, but she could have at least tried to fake a smile for it.

In fact, she was behaving rather like the hanyou had last night. Silent, sulking, and lost completely in her own thoughts, though even less responsive. He frowned, wondering on how best to get her attention.

"Why not ask about things instead of just running away with the first sign of a problem?"

She was still silent. In the sole day he had known the woman, he had figured out there was little she liked to do more than talk with people.

Perhaps words weren't strong enough to wake her up out of her funk. That was a rather interesting shirt she was wearing. What were those little designs on it? He tugged the bottom of the shirt free and lifted it closer for inspection.

Kagome snapped back to reality with the tug. She looked down. Was he looking up her shirt?

"PERVERT!" Her slap sent him falling forward into her lap. She shrieked and jumped up, unceremoniously dumping Matsuro to the ground. "Don't do that!"

Matsuro sat back up, wiping dirt away from his grinning face. "I think they're lizards," he said.

Kagome's look of irritation changed to one of bewilderment. "Lizards?" She repeated.

"Those things on your shirt. They look like lizards mating in a fuzzy sort of way."

"They're ferns!" She shrieked. "Quit being disgusting."

He grinned. At least that was back to normal. She changed moods faster than a compulsive shopper exchanged money for goods. "You feel like talking now?"

Kagome sat back down, no longer within arm's reach of the kitsune. He considered pouting, but decided he had had enough indignity for one morning. He noticed footsteps on the shrine's tall staircase. Young human woman, he noted from the scent.

"You have more company coming," he told the miko studying her shirt, trying to see lizards.

She looked up. "Who?"

He shrugged, wondering why she thought he would know. "Some girl. Likely someone who will wonder why I have tails and pointed ears."

Kagome's eyes moved to his tails. "I could put an illusion on them," she suggested.

He listened as the footsteps grew louder. "Best be quick about it," he said. "She's almost here."

Kagome reached a hand to touch one tail and frowned. Pink light gathered about the hand as she concentrated, recalling the power she had used in making Mischa's dog tags. Matsuro flinched as the holy energy touched him, but there was no pain of purification power in it.

Just as a dark head appeared from their view of the stairs, the tails disappeared. He reached a hand up to note that his ears felt round. He cocked his head inquisitively to look at the miko. The illusion was powerful to make him believe he had round ears. She didn't appear to realize just what she had done.

She blushed under his gaze. "It's just a spell, so it will wear off in a couple hours. If you plan on staying here, I could make you a charm like I did for Mischa," she offered.

"Kagome-chan!" Kagome broke eye contact to swivel her head around to the front of the property. The woman finally reached the top of the steps and noticed the two sitting beneath the tree.

"Eri-chan!" Kagome squealed. She stood quickly up and raced over to the woman. They hugged and started speaking rapidly with each other over what they had been doing the past semester.

Matsuro looked the woman over. Short curly dark hair framed her face beautifully, and dark brown eyes twinkled as Kagome blushed at some comment he had missed. Decent figure, he thought, though Kagome's was by far much curvier.

"Ne, Kagome-chan, who's the hottie?" Eri asked, finally noticing the redhead watching them amusedly. "He's here awfully early in the day."

Kagome stammered, "He's a friend-"

Eri continued to talking, not noticing Kagome trying to answer the question. "Hey, he didn't stay the night here? I heard your family's out of town, and I know you wouldn't have strange men over without supervision-"

Matsuro chuckled. Too bad it wasn't what she was thinking, for all that she had guessed properly that he had spent the night here.

"Eri-chan!" Kagome yelled over her friend's babble. "It's not what your thinking!"

The girl stopped to look over at Kagome. "Then what is it?"

Kagome sighed. Matsuro debated getting up and joining them to complete the idea the woman had in mind, but decided against it.

"He's just a friend, Eri-chan." Sweet of the miko to call him friend when she'd barely known him for a day. Perhaps after he'd known her for a week she'd call him something else-

"Mat-kun, come over here and meet Eri! She's my best friend. She's been studying business in Kyoto, but the summer semester doesn't start for another awhile, so she's home to visit," Kagome called to him. Mat-kun?

Disappointed to be taken from his thoughts, he got up and walked over to the two.

The shorter woman stuck out her hand. "I'm Kurosawa Eri."

He took her hand and raised it to his lips and kissed it gently. "A pleasure to meet you, Eri-san," he said silkily. She blushed and giggled, and Kagome poked a finger into his side to remind him to let go of the hand. "Kain Matsuro, at your service."

Eri seemed to be having trouble stopping her blush. Kagome giggled as well. "You didn't do that to me, Mat-kun," she said, a playful frown on her face.

"I could now, if you wanted to," he offered with a wink. "At the time, I was more worried about your cousin's reaction, but she's not here right now."

"No, that's quite all right," she said, smiling. "Ne, Eri-chan, are you all right?"

Eri still had a glazed look in her eye. Nice to know some women still appreciated good looks when they saw them.

Kagome snapped her fingers in Eri's face, and the girl snapped somewhat back to reality. "Hmm?"

Both Kagome and Matsuro grinned. "I'll head back inside and tell your cousin you have a friend here," Matsuro said to Kagome.

"Thanks!" she said cheerfully.

"I hope we meet again soon," he told the shorthaired girl, then returned to the house. He could feel both girls' eyes on him, and the visitor said under her breath, "Yummy." Neither could see the amused grin on his face, but Kagome knew he had caught her friend's quiet word with his extra-sensitive hearing. The door shut behind him.

Louder, Eri asked, "Where'd you find him and does he have any brothers?"

Kagome giggled. "Just a little sister. She's in the house if you want to meet her."

Eri shook her head. "No time right now. I just came by to tell you I'm kidnapping you tomorrow to go shopping. See if you can talk him into coming," she said with a grin.

The door slammed open. Kagome and Eri stopped to look over. Chame and Mischa shoved Inu-Yasha out of the door and he stumbled to the ground.

"Oi, what was that for?" he said angrily as he got up, not bothering to dust the dirt off his clothes.

"Would having manners really hurt that much?" Mischa asked him from the doorway. Chame stepped further back into the house, noticing the newcomer and not wanting whoever it was to notice her demon features.

"Wow, Kagome-chan, just how many of them do you have in there?" Eri asked, looking at Inu-Yasha. "And tell me where I can get one."

Mischa blanched at Eri's voice. Where one was, the others were sure to show up sooner or later. Ayumi, she knew, was in China, but she had no idea what Yuka was up to for the summer. She surreptitiously kicked Chame to the side with a muttered "unless you can lose the tail and ears, you're housebound," and stepped out, shutting the door behind her.

"Good morning, Kurosawa-san," she said, walking past Inu-Yasha to greet the bubbly young woman.

Eri smiled brightly at Mischa. "Morning, Meirin-sempai!" She turned to Kagome. "Ne, Kagome-chan, why all the guests? Did I miss a party?" She looked disappointed.

Kagome shook her head. "They're friends of Mischa's," she explained, shooting a glare at both hanyou to not argue the point.

"Oh, graduate students," Eri said wisely.

Inu-Yasha looked ready to disagree with the statement, but two blue-eyed glares reminded him that acting up in front of an uninformed human was a bad idea. Eri missed the silent interchange.

"No wonder they don't look familiar. I've got to do my graduate work here if they're all as yummy as these two are." Kagome giggled at the look of disbelief on Inu-Yasha's face.

"Yummy?" He repeated under his breath. "Stupid human." Mischa was inclined to agree.

"So are they staying here? Are they single? Are they into undergrads? How long have you known them? I thought Meirin-sempai didn't like people. Who was that girl?"

Three sets of eyes blinked confusedly at the rapid words coming out of the girl's mouth.

"They," Inu-Yasha said, "or at least this one, don't like being talked about like they're not standing right in front of you. Just who the hell are you anyway?"

"Sorry, I forgot entirely!" Eri said, not embarrassed by the reprimand. "I'm Kurosawa Eri."

Inu-Yasha looked ready to not give a reply, but a barely visible spike in pink magic told him the younger of the two cousins was very much into politeness. "Inu-Yasha," he said shortly.

Eri looked disappointed at the lack of answers to her questions, but seemed used to it.

"So, Kagome-chan, tomorrow, ten a.m. sharp. I've only got a week here, you know. And see if that yummy guy likes short girls. He must be a foot taller than me! Bye!" And she disappeared back down the shrine's staircase.

"Weird girl," Inu-Yasha commented.

"You have no idea," Mischa replied.

"Hey, Mischa, Inu-Yasha, be nice! Eri-chan is just really hyperactive! No need to call her names," Kagome defended her friend.

Snickering could be heard from the now-opened front door to the house. Chame was peeking her head out the front door to see if the girl had gone yet. She was lifted up as the door open wider, and Matsuro carried her out to where the other three stood.

"Who was that, Shin-sama? She really likes guys. Do you suppose she actually wants a boyfriend or just likes window-shopping? Do you suppose her head would explode if she found out we were demons? Or half-demon, in the puppy's case."

Chame was talking even faster than Eri and had yet to breathe as all the words came tumbling out of her mouth.

Kagome giggled. She was even worse than Eri was. "That was my friend Eri. She's studying in Kyoto, but she's in Tokyo for the next week. She just came over to tell me she was in town and taking me shopping tomorrow. She's probably hitting Yuka's place next," Kagome told the still babbling kitsune.

"You let her put sugar in her Cheerios, didn't you?" Mischa said to Kagome.

The miko's snicker was answer enough.

"Oi, kit, shut the fuck up already!"

"Cheerios really are- Koinu isn't the boss of me! I don't take orders from stupid half-dogs!"

Matsuro dropped the kit on the ground.

"What was that for?" she asked as she hopped to her feet. Kagome got a sense of déjà vu.

"I can only take so much babble for one day," he said.

Chame pouted.

Kagome finally remembered what had brought her outside to begin with. Four heads snapped around to look at her as they noted the sudden swing in her mood.

"None of you are going anywhere until you explain to me what a guardian is and why you think I'm one," she said.

"What the hell needs to be explained about a guardian?" Inu-Yasha asked. "It's just some stupid human stuck guarding something."

Chame kicked him in the shin. "Inu no baka!"

"Quit fucking doing that!" He returned the kick, and she tumbled backwards, managing to land on her feet.

"That's not what a guardian is at all!" Chame said, putting her hands on her hips to glare at the taller demon. "Yeah, they're humans and they're guarding something, but that doesn't even begin to explain it."

"Like you can explain it any better?" he asked snidely.

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"An explanation, already?" Kagome asked, irritated that the two were trying to distract her from her quest to beat the crap out of the four until she got some semblance of an explanation as to what was going on.

"They're humans with powerful magic," Chame explained. "I've never heard of a miko being once, since guardians always guard something of a youkai make and rare as miko are, a youkai-friendly miko is even rarer."

"So what is it you think I'm guarding?" she asked.

There was silence.

"Well?"

"I don't know," Chame said. "The fact you're a guardian is written in your energy, like your miko powers are, but it doesn't say what it is you guard."

Kagome looked at Mischa to see what she had to say. After all, it was entirely Mischa's fault these people were here. Mischa shrugged. "The lords didn't tell me anything."

Her gaze moved to Inu-Yasha. "Feh."

Lastly, Matsuro. He looked thoughtfully at her. Chame noted the use of magic and looked at Kagome, trying to see what Matsuro was doing. Gold light flickered around her, visible to those able to work magic. The light disappeared as pink miko magic lashed out at it. Matsuro grimaced.

"What do you think you're doing?" Kagome said angrily.

"Trying to see what you were guarding. All I caught was pink magic and that it's within you."

Everybody looked puzzled at the statement. "She guards something _in_ her?" Chame said. "But it's a demon item, it can't be inside a human."

Matsuro shrugged. "Just calling it like I see it, kit-chan."

"Never tell me anything," Mischa muttered.

"Give it a rest already, wolf. You're a hanyou, what makes you expect anything but nothing from them?" Inu-Yasha said.

"I expected them to have given me enough information to let me do my job!" She lashed out at him.

"Job?" Kagome said.

"Why do you think you aren't dead yet, Shin-sama? You're only human, and very easy prey for strong youkai."

"I'm not weak," Kagome argued.

Chame's fist glowed green as she aimed a punch for the miko's stomach. Kagome caught the fist, then let go with a gasp of pain. She looked at her hand. It looked as if she had poured acid on it.

"Genko, that is enough," Mischa said as Chame looked ready to try and hit the woman again.

Kagome's hand glowed pink for a second, and the wounds disappeared.

"I'm not weak," she repeated. "And you haven't explained this job Mischa spoke of."

"Youkai," Mischa said, "are drawn to power."

"Yeah, that's what you said earlier about those people you said were trying to kidnap me."

"This is not the first time they've come after you."

"Get to the damn point already!" Inu-Yasha said, annoyed at Mischa's slow way of explaining herself.

But Kagome knew the tactic. It was Mischa's way of letting her figure it out for herself. "Then, those fights you were always getting into-" she said hesitantly, trying to find the conclusion to the thoughts that came with Mischa's vague statements.

"Were not just bar fights with drunks," Mischa said. "It was me hunting down youkai asking too many questions about you and informing them that the attention was unwanted and if they continued, they would find themselves dead." She glared at Matsuro.

Kagome figured Mischa thought the handsome kitsune was yet another youkai looking to grab her for reasons unknown. But she didn't sense any evil coming from him, so Mischa had nothing to worry about.

"Are you saying I'm just some job for you?" Kagome asked, her anger returning in full.

"Idiot," Inu-Yasha said. "You're blood and she's a wolf. Don't you know anything about youkai? Some miko," he said.

"What's that supposed to mean, Inu-Yasha?"

Matsuro laid a calming hand on the miko's arm. "Family, miko." A zap of purification power made him release her arm. She hated that word. He continued on, ignoring the slight pain in his hand. "Wolf youkai are one of the few types of demons who are bound together as family. Most don't care."

Mischa's gaze turned to Matsuro, confused. Why was he helping explain? He winked at her and grinned lasciviously. Oh, right. She'd owe him a favor. She growled softly.

"You mean she isn't guarding me because it's a job, but because I'm her cousin?"

"What he means to say is that the lords gave me the job because I would have done it anyway, once I found out," Mischa said. She rubbed her hand on the cheek where her demon markings were hidden under illusion. "And Kags, you have three minutes to get to work before you're late."

Kagome glanced at her watch. Mischa was right, it was almost nine. "Kyaa! I'm going to be late!" She rushed inside to grab her bag.

"Don't you have work too, Musha?" Chame asked. "Shin-sama said you worked at one of the hospitals. What's family practice and why do you have to practice it?"

Mischa winked at the tiny kitsune and disappeared, reappearing seconds later with a backpack in one hand.

"You've gotten faster," Inu-Yasha noted.

Mischa shrugged, cocking her head to listen to Kagome come pounding down the stairs inside to race outside.

"Are you waiting for something?" Matsuro asked.

Mischa sent him a blank stare.

His question was answered as Kagome ran past the four standing in the courtyard, muttering to herself about evil youkai and cats, then shrieked "I'm not a sack of potatoes!" as Mischa swept the girl up and both disappeared in a burst of speed.

"What the hell?" Inu-Yasha said, staring after the two and clenching his fist around the piece of paper slipped there.

"The miko won't be late for work," Chame noted, "but Musha will."

"I wonder where the miko works," Matsuro said. "Obviously a restaurant, judging from the uniform she was wearing, but it can't be a very good one if her skirt's that short."

"Is that all you pay attention to, fox?" Inu-Yasha asked.

Matsuro grinned. "It was a wonderfully tight shirt as well."

Chame giggled as Inu-Yasha stomped off, muttering about hormone-driven kitsune.

"It's not my hormones, mutt!" Matsuro called out in a friendly manner as the hanyou disappeared down the stairs.

"Fuck off!"

"It's more fun with a partner!"

Chame doubted Inu-Yasha was far enough away to have missed the shouted comment, but he had wisely refrained from answering and provoking yet another lewd remark from the redhead.

"Was the wolf like that when you knew her, kit-chan?" Matsuro asked, guiding the kit back inside so he could grab his bag and keys.

"Like what?"

"So closed off. She'll talk with the miko, but won't say anything beyond what's polite and necessary for others. And it seems to me that she's avoiding physical contact as well. Subtle, but it's noticeable if you're going out of your way to actually grab her," he explained. He recalled the quick way she had torn herself out of his grasp the day before.

"I think so. She never stayed near the other wolf pups when I was there. She used to use me as a shield to get out of all sorts of terrible games they wanted her to play. The older pups didn't like her much, but the little ones didn't mind her, though they couldn't stop the older ones from doing anything to her. I guess that's why she stuck near me. I was older, but I was smaller than the wolves my age and she figured it would be safer to stay with me than the babies."

Matsuro looked thoughtfully down at the child as they crossed the courtyard to the stairs. "That doesn't explain her actions around the miko."

"The miko is younger than her. Musha can handle people younger than her, even if it's kind of an illusion like with me, but she doesn't like adults."

Chame recognized the look on her brother's face. It was the same look her father had given Mikomi upon meeting her and discovering that she was a miko mated to a youkai. Extreme confusion and the pleasure of discovering a puzzle to be solved. The excitement of having a challenge. And challenge Mischa would be, to get any information out of her about herself.

"Brother," she said warningly. "She's going to kill you."

He grinned. "That's what you think."

Chame felt a little sorry for Mischa. She knew the wolf-girl didn't like her brother, and she knew her brother wasn't about to leave the woman alone until he found out why she avoided people.

She hopped onto the motorcycle behind him. "Where are we going?"

"Bars youkai can be found in."

Chame shook her head wearily. He was just like their father. Why couldn't he have gotten more common sense?

**-----**

Walking down one of the many side streets of Tokyo, Inu-Yasha wondered at the paper in his hand.

The wolf had slipped it to him in the confusion of Kagome's mad dash for work, right before grabbing the miko and hoisting her over her shoulder.

Written on it was an address that had led to the human's workplace. As the kitsune had guessed, it was not high-class, but it looked to be popular- probably from all the attractive young women working there. Nearby was a dimly lit building that looked to be a nightclub. It was closed right now, but he could smell the youkai taking shelter in the building.

"You sure you can eat all this ramen, Inu-Yasha?" Kagome said as she passed him the to-go bag. "I've never had a customer order enough ramen to feed a classroom of starving children."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." He handed her the money to pay for the food and noted one of the waitresses staring at him. "What's her problem?"

Kagome followed his gaze. "Ai-san likes blondes, but only if they're British."

"All these girls staring at me is pissing me off."

"It's your fault. If you weren't so good-lucking and doing the 'brooding hero' look, they wouldn't look twice at you."

Another customer entered the building.

"Look, I appreciate you stopping by to make sure Mischa didn't drop me on the way to work, but I've got to get back to work."

She turned to go. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her closer.

"What is it?" she asked, annoyed.

"I know you're depending on your miko senses to warn you when youkai enter your range," he whispered. "But that doesn't mean they weren't there before you." His eyes looked out the window, across the street to the closed nightclub. She followed his gaze, frowning.

"There isn't-" she began.

"There are those things that hide youki from miko power. One of them is in that building, and judging from the horrendous stink, it's been there awhile. There's at least seven youkai in there."

"Thanks for the warning," she said, tugging her arm free from his grip.

"Kagome-san, who's the cutie? Did you give him your number? Better yet, did you get _his_ number?" One of the waitresses called out from behind the counter. "Can I have it too?"

"Gods, are all human girls like this?" he asked, turning a horrified gaze to the owner of the new voice.

Kagome shrugged sheepishly. "Most." She turned her head back to the other waitress. "Ne, Rin-san, he's Mischa's, I've already got his number, and no, you can't have him."

"Oooh, this is who she's ditching all those losers for. Your cousin's got great taste, Kagome-san! Honey, if that grumpy girl ever ditches you, you come here to Rin-chan for a shoulder to cry on," she told a spluttering Inu-Yasha.

Kagome winked at the red-faced hanyou and whispered, "Trust me, if I didn't say Mischa had a claim on you, Rin-san would be all over you. And she's a good worker, even if she's easier than breathing, so I don't want you hospitalizing her. Now beat it." Louder, she said, "Tell Mischa I'm going to stop by Yuka's on the way back from work and not to worry if I'm not home when she finally crawls in."

"Kagome, get your ass back at the register!" A tall man with a nametag reading 'Nanasawa Mamoru, Manager' yelled at her.

"Sayonara!" She said, skipping back to her job station.

Inu-Yasha blinked a couple times, noted Rin's eyes back on him, and took the opportunity to leave before someone else decided to offer to be his girlfriend.

Outside on the street, he shuddered. Too many humans. Too many females. He wondered how the redhead put up with his sister's babble, then recalled Kagome explaining the two had only found each other yesterday. They got along remarkably well for that. He'd known his brother for over a century and they were barely on speaking terms.

A motorcycle with a familiar redhead and tiny girl with a long dark braid honked its horn as it sped past. Even over the wind, he could hear Chame's laughter. Inu-Yasha didn't want to know where they were going. Ignorance was bliss, especially when kitsune were involved.

He looked at Mischa's scrawled note below the address for Kagome's workplace.

_Who is Shinin and why would he want a miko?_

He recognized the name from somewhere, but damned if he could remember where.

He obviously hadn't checked with enough people about the Meirin-Higurashi family if the wolf was picking up a name he hadn't in his search to see what was so important about the volatile miko.

Where was that damn flea when he needed him?


	10. Nine: Late Night Thoughts

Chapter Nine: Late Night Thoughts 

_"A problem well stated is a problem half solved."_

- Charles Franklin Kettering

**-- Early hours of May 19, Tokyo, Japan --**

Kagome flopped onto the loveseat, completely exhausted. Matsuro looked to be about to join her. Not wanting to keep track of his hands, she twisted her legs up to rest on the armrest opposite her head. He grinned at the subtle refusal of company and sat down on the couch across from her. Mischa sat on one of the window seats, using a knife from the kitchen to cut up a cardboard box. It seemed a relatively safe way to vent unspoken frustrations. Inu-Yasha occupied the other window seat, tugging on the tacky necklace that kept his demon features hidden. Chame was lying on her stomach, half-heartedly trying to get Buyo off of her back. His loud purring as he kneaded his claws into one of her tails echoed through the otherwise silent room.

Two days of questioning, and none of them had anything to show for it. Nothing they seemed in any hurry to share, Kagome thought, noting the slightly guilty look in Mischa's eyes, the thoughtful look in Matsuro's as he watched Mischa finish cutting up the box, and the look of utter annoyance Inu-Yasha had as he mumbled something about someone named Myouga.

Chame was the only one in the room who seemed at ease. Though even her play was less than it could have been, for the girl was annoyed at Buyo for deciding her tails were an excellent place to sleep.

"Would you quit that already?" Kagome said to Mischa, who had finished with the box and was now absently twirling the knife between her fingers, eyes closed as her mind thought over what she had learned.

Mischa opened her eyes to look confusedly at Kagome. She looked down to the knife in her hand, and seemed startled to find it there. She blinked at it a few times, then gave Kagome a sheepish grin as she tossed the knife over Matsuro's head. It flew into the kitchen slid cleanly into the knife rack it had come from.

"I don't need a haircut, wolf," Matsuro said, too tied up in his thoughts to either get angry or make a more vulgar comment on her attempt at being a barber.

Kagome was too shocked by the odd move to say anything.

"If you're done showing off, pup, perhaps we could get back to discussing this Shinin the wench's would-be kidnappers spoke of?" Inu-Yasha said, annoyed.

"I thought we already agreed nobody's heard of him," she replied.

"I know the name from somewhere, damn it. And that coward Myouga has yet to show back up with anything on him," he grumbled.

"Who's Myouga?" Kagome asked.

"A flea demon," he told her.

Chame giggled from her spot on the floor. "It would be the bug youkai who manage to make it through the world without illusions."

"Children should be seen and not heard," Inu-Yasha told her.

"Then why are you still talking, puppy?"

"If we could get back to the topic at hand?" Matsuro said wearily. "It's been a very long and completely useless day, and I'd like to get it over with and find someplace to crash for the night."

Kagome opened her mouth to again offer the couch, but Mischa cut her off. "He has found other places the past two days, Kags, he can do it again."

Kagome made a small disgusted sound in the back of her throat, but let Mischa's argument slide. The redhead was right, it had been a long day, and Buyo's idea of getting some sleep looked to be the best idea any of them had had.

Matsuro considered commenting that he hadn't exactly slept the past two days, but decided the ensuing arguments would just lengthen the amount of time they were going to be spending trying to figure out what else they could do to discover what was going on around the miko. Besides, by the look in the wolf's eyes as she glared at him, she was no longer merely _suspicious_ of him. She _knew_ something. He rather dreaded that confrontation.

"So what have we figured out?" Kagome said.

"Shinin is some guy we think wants to kidnap you," Chame said unhelpfully.

"And we don't know whether it's for your magic or whatever it is you guard," Matsuro added gamely.

"And someone else is after you because they think they've found a way to draw your power out of you before your blood transmutes it into human magic." Chame spoke with the knowledge of one who had dealt with magic all her life. Judging by the short amount of time it took for the tiny kitsune to find a loophole in the shrine's wards that allowed her to actually hold her human illusion for a time, Kagome thought it very possible that the girl _had_ used magic since birth.

(Green light sparkled around Chame and her twin black tails reappeared, along with cute fox ears Kagome had to fight herself with to keep from tweaking. "You've got pretty powerful wards, Shin-sama. My illusion's basic magic I don't even need to think about to hold, and I had to really concentrate to keep it up just for fifteen minutes.")

She hadn't exactly wanted a word-for-word recap of everything she had told them, but the kitsune seemed to be having fun telling her everything she already knew. She had asked for it, she thought glumly.

"And the taiyoukai think your wolf can keep these people off of you."

"Or else think Musha's smart enough to call in reinforcements." Kagome didn't think much of the so-called reinforcements they had somehow picked up. A pervert, a magic-using ancient child, and a continuously irritated half-demon.

("He has contacts in many places, Kags, that will tell him everything they know just to get him to leave them the hell alone. And he could beat me in a fight with one arm tied behind his back.")

Kagome had yet to see him do anything remotely helpful, beyond the earlier warning against the youkai in the building across from where she worked.

"And the people after you- probably Shinin- figured that out and blew up her apartment." How had Matsuro known of that? She knew Mischa wouldn't have told him, nor would Inu-Yasha, and Chame didn't know either. And there were no names given to the press.

"But that didn't work, so now they're just going to skip the 'kill the hanyou' part of the plan and head straight for the 'nab the miko' part of their twisted, evil plan."

"Now you're just making this up," Kagome told Chame.

"Makes sense to me," Matsuro said. "I'd skip killing her and spend all my time on nabbing you. Grab you right when you leave work while you're still in that wonderfully short skirt, tie you up so you can't escape, gag you so you won't call for help- though that really takes away from the-"

"Shut the fuck up already!" Inu-Yasha said. "Fucking pervert."

Kagome silently thanked the man for shutting the kitsune up. She really didn't want to hear anything more _he_ would do. They were supposed to be figuring out what someone else would do. Hopefully whatever youkai was after her, if he was youkai at all, was not a kitsune. She was having enough trouble controlling her blushes just around the two she already knew.

Now she understood Mischa's warning. Anything you said or did was encouragement for him to make a lewd remark about it. And that was the very least of what he would do. Nor did he seem fazed at all by the fact Mischa was a child by youkai terms. He hit on her even more often than he did on Kagome.

"Get this stupid fat furball off me," Chame said.

"Now, now, Chame-chan, he's comfortable. And as old as Buyo is, he needs something soft to sleep on," Kagome said with a smile.

"Would you get him off if I said I was allergic to cats?"

"You haven't sneezed yet," Matsuro noted. "And youkai don't have allergies."

"But she didn't know that," Chame muttered.

Kagome grinned. The two of them seemed to be settling in to the notion they were family very easily. Of course, they treated the rest of the people in the room much the same way.

Come to think of it, Mischa was being even more silent than usual. She turned concerned eyes to the brown-clad figure curled up on the window seat. Mischa looked to be asleep.

"Now that's what I call trust," Matsuro said, following Kagome's gaze, "sleeping in my presence when she's only known me a week."

Mischa silently raised one hand up to give him the finger, then put it back down.

"Much better," he said with a grin. "I'd hate to have bored you to sleep. That would just mean I'd have to try harder to-"

Kagome was getting the hang of shutting him up. Interruption. "Ne, Mischa, what are you doing over there, if you're not sleeping?"

Mischa opened one eye to look at Kagome. "Trying to get to sleep."

"Like you're stupid enough to sleep around those two idiots," Inu-Yasha said.

"Yeah," Chame added as she managed to lift her head up from the floor to rest on her arms. "Trying to get to sleep around Inu-Yasha would be pretty stupid. You'd never get any rest, what with him yelling all the time."

"Fuck off, midget."

"You get kicks out of kids doing that, mutt?"

Mischa's explanation that youkai liked to hate each other looked to be proven true.

"Shinin," Mischa said, ignoring the argument, "is a name I read in the paper."

The argument stopped immediately.

"And you just now think to tell us this, you mangy wolf?" Inu-Yasha yelled.

"Honestly, Mischa, couldn't you have told us this earlier?"

She shrugged, offering no explanation as to why she hadn't.

"Shinin-Kino Enterprises," she elaborated.

"There was a big ruckus in the papers," Matsuro said, understanding. "They're famous businessmen merging their companies into one massive over-corporation. Kind of like the Time Warner-AOL thing over in America."

Kagome vaguely remembered reading a few headlines concerning the matter.

"But why would a business company be after her?" Chame asked.

Nobody looked to be able to answer that question. The hanyou and youkai knew better than to tell Kagome they knew that both businessmen were powerful youkai. Sesshoumaru was not the only youkai with an interest in the business world

"Maybe if we got some sleep, we'd be able to think better," Kagome said.

"Would your bed be open, Kagome-sama?"

"Put a sock in it, fox, you ain't going in her room."

"No harm in trying." He got off the sofa and carefully picked Buyo up from Chame's tail and set the fat cat on the ground. Before Buyo could decide to reclaim his sleeping spot, Chame jumped to her feet.

"We'll be back in the morning," he told Kagome as he grabbed his leather jacket and keys.

"I think it already is morning," she said, looking at the clock on the wall.

He grinned. "I love keeping girls up all hours of the night."

"Quit flirting and let's go, brother," Chame said, pushing him to the door to grab their shoes.

He gave a mocking salute to the two hanyou. "I'll be sure to read up on Shinin before I come back."

"Feh, like you would ever waste your time on learning to read."

"The ladies love an intelligent man."

"I'm not seeing how that applies to you," Mischa said.

He raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth to reply.

"Will you be reading up on Kino as well?" she asked.

He closed his mouth, realizing what she meant. The other occupants of the room looked puzzled at his change in mood.

"Of course," Chame said, not understanding what Mischa had meant by the question.

Mischa waited until she could hear two light steps on the staircase before speaking again. "Good night, Kags, inu." She disappeared.

"What the fuck was up with that?" Inu-Yasha said.

Kagome had no idea. "Why did she ask him if he would read up on Kino as well? It's Shinin we think is after me, not Kino."

"Did she find out something she didn't tell us?"

"I could ask the same of you," Kagome told him.

"I'm not sharing until I have proof, that's all. We've got enough unconfirmed information already we don't need more messing with our heads."

Kagome didn't look convinced, but was too sleepy to argue. "Sure," she said half-heartedly. "Good night, Inu-Yasha."

She walked up the stairs, leaving the hanyou on the window seat to wonder why Mischa had left the house.

**-----**

Kagome's sleep was troubled. Her dreams were a hodge-podge of memories.

---

"_Kagome, dear, could you get that?"_

Her mother sat in the kitchen, speaking with her older sister, who had shown up a few hours earlier. Kagome sighed and put down the book she was reading to open the front door.

A girl looking to be thirteen stood outside, hands in her pockets, looking bored. Her hair shoulder-length and looked like it had never been brushed in her life. She wore a heavy gray sweater and light khaki pants. A brown backpack lay at her feet where she had set it down to knock on the door. Kagome thought the girl looked a lot like she did when she was a little younger. The girl said nothing, merely stared at Kagome impassively.

"Can I help you?" Kagome asked.

"I'm looking for my mother." The girl had a deeper voice than she had expected.

Kagome had no idea how to respond to that. "Um."

"Is she here?" Something about the girl's voice said she already knew the answer to the question, even if Kagome didn't.

Kagome looked back inside, then back at the girl. "What's her name?"

"Meirin Mikomi."

"You're her daughter? I thought she said her daughter was twenty."

The girl said nothing.

"Excuse me? You going to answer?"

Her aunt came up behind her. "Mischando, what are you doing here?"

"I could say the same of you, Mother. You should be in Niigata."

Kagome stepped out of the way so Mikomi could walk past her and start straightening up her daughter's hair. "Never you mind that, Mischando. You need to brush up before you leave your apartment. Honestly, child, do you like looking like a mess?"

Mischando shrugged.

Mikomi turned her attention to Kagome. "Ah, Kagome, meet your cousin, Mischando. She's not very talkative, I'm afraid."

"Standing right here," Mischando said, her voice oddly not annoyed by her mother's aside to Kagome.

"A pleasure to meet you, Mischando," Kagome said, wondering why the girl had come, and if she really was twenty.

"You too," the girl replied. "Please do not call me that."

Kagome looked confusedly between mother and daughter, but shrugged. "Sure thing. Mischa okay?"

The girl nodded. "It's fine."

---

A fifteen-year old Kagome peeked into the well house.

"Buyo?" She called, looking for her missing cat. Souta stood behind her, using her as a shield for any monsters the closed-up building might hold.

She walked into the building. "Souta, this is going to make me late for school."

"Aw, sis, you were going to be late anyway," he said, not following her in.

Kagome peeked down the well. Buyo sat at the bottom, hind leg in the air like a flagpole as he licked the base of his tail.

She spotted a ladder leading down into the well and climbed over the ledge and down. Buyo meowed at her as he noticed her coming.

"Buyo, you stupid cat, how did you get down here without breaking anything?"

He meowed again, as if to say 'a cat always lands on his feet.'

She grabbed the cat and climbed back up. "Next time he does this, Souta, you're getting him. There aren't any monsters in here and you shouldn't be scared of it." She put the cat down and he raced outside.

Souta stood, staring over her shoulder. "Uh, sis," but the rest of what he said wasn't understandable.

"Souta, what is your problem?" She placed her hands on her hips to stare down angrily at him.

"There _are_ monsters in here," he said.

She turned around. A giant thing with lots of arms was diving down at her, shouting something about a jewel. She screamed.

The hands grabbed her, and both monster and girl fell into the well.

---

A younger Kagome raced to school. It was her first day of junior high, and she didn't want to be late.

Not paying close attention to traffic, she dashed across the crosswalk. A car honk and the squeal of brakes made her freeze, turning to the noise. A silver sports car was speeding her way, brakes squealing furiously as the driver tried to slow down enough to miss the child, not able to turn out of the way because of the cars in the other lanes of traffic.

Just before the car hit the girl, a pedestrian leaped from the sidewalk to grab her, and they both fell hard on the ground on the other side of the street. Kagome could hardly breathe, all the air had rushed out of her lungs in the fall, and the weight of a grown man on her back didn't make it easy to inhale.

He stood. "You don't fucking stop in the middle of the road, you stupid kid," he said as she stood dizzily. Through blurry eyes she could make out a tall blonde man dusting his red coat off.

"I'm so sorry, sir, I was in a rush to get to school. Kyaa! I'm going to be late! Thank you for saving me!" she called as she continued her mad dash to school.

The last thing she heard him say was "fucking Akira," before he was lost behind her in the crowd.

---

_A tall man in black and purple monk's robes knelt before he, holding her hands in his. He had a serious look to his face, but there was a slight sparkle of humor in violet eyes peeking out from under black bangs. "Beautiful lady, would you bear my child?"_

"Pervert!" She said, freeing her hands from his grasp and slapping him. "Honestly, Miroku-sama, do you have to keep asking that of every pretty girl you come across?"

"One of them may yet say yes, Kagome-sama, and I shall continue my search until I find her," he said as he pulled himself up off the ground and dusted the dirt from his robes. "I didn't hear you say no, Kagome-sama. Have you finally changed your mind?"

"I'm not bearing your child!" she shrieked.

He sighed.

---

_Souta was waiting outside the school with another girl as Kagome and Mischa walked up._

"Sorry we're late, Souta. I had to stop by the bank to deposit my paycheck and the line was longer than expected. Who's your friend?"

The girl looked Souta's age, with short, not quite chin-length hair dyed a realistic shade of green. Her brown eyes looked almost red and she smiled at the two older girls. "I'm Ayame. Maybe Souta-kun mentioned me?"

Both shook their heads. The girl didn't seem to be upset. "Souta-kun," she teased, "are you ashamed to tell your sister about me?"

He blushed. "I never got around to it," he defended.

"Yeah, we don't see each other as often as we used to," Kagome said. "That's why we're going to the park today. Want to come with?"

The girl shook her head. "No, I've got to get home. Father will be upset if I am late."

Kagome smiled. "They can be overprotective, can't they?" Ayame made a disgusted face, but she ignored it. "Nice meeting you, and stop by the shrine sometime and meet our mother."

"Kagooommeee," Souta said, embarrassed at her offer. Ayame giggled.

"Sayonara!" The girl walked off in the opposite direction the trio took.

Mischa turned her head to watch the girl. "Oi, brat," she said, her voice a bit puzzled.

"What is it?"

"What was her family name?"

Souta looked thoughtful. "I think it's Kino."

----

Kagome shot up with a gasp.

Ayame, that girl Souta was always meeting with, her last name was Kino! Had Mischa remembered that? Was that why she asked Matsuro if he was going to look into the man?

She didn't worry about the rest of the strange dreams as she ran down the stairs to the guest room Mischa was staying in. Flinging the door open, she discovered an empty room. The bed was made, looking as if it hadn't been slept in. The alarm on the nightstand beside it read it was slightly before six and hadn't been set. She had gotten less than four hours of sleep.

Where was Mischa?

"She never came back," a voice behind her said. She shrieked, turning around to see Inu-Yasha still sitting on the window seat, looking outside to watch the sky. She hadn't noticed him there when she came past.

"Who, Mischa? She left?"

"It's why I stayed. You shouldn't be left alone, but she seemed to think whatever she had to do was important, so I'm covering for her." He looked annoyed. "Go back to bed. You look like hell."

Kagome stuck her tongue out at him. "Do you know when she'll be back?"

"Hell if I know."

The adrenaline rush from the realization Souta was somewhat connected to the people seemingly after her had faded.

"Hey, Inu-Yasha," she started.

"What?"

"Souta knows someone called Kino Ayame."

"And Kino's the other part of Shinin-Kino Enterprises. Think she's his daughter?"

"Or something. I just wanted to tell someone before I forgot."

She headed back upstairs to her room. Lying down on the bed, she fell asleep instantly and had no more dreams.


	11. Ten: Missing

Chapter Ten: Missing 

_"It is always the best policy to speak the truth, unless of course you are an exceptionally good liar."_

-Jerome K. Jerome

**-- Early hours of May 19, Tokyo, Japan --**

"How long?"

It had taken Matsuro awhile to escape a finally sleeping Chame to confront the shadow that had followed him from the shrine. But he hadn't expected her to start.

"How long what?" he asked. "How long since I last saw my parents? How long since Kino first approached me to do his bidding? How long I've worked for him? How long I've planned to shred his wings, break every bone is his tail, and strangle him with the damn thing? How long _what_, wolf?" He ground out angrily.

She looked startled, not expecting him to actually admit to anything she was going to ask about. "Any of those would do."

He snorted. "Life's never simple, and the longer you live, the more complicated it gets."

Mischa wondered what hold Kino had over the free-spirited kitsune that allowed him to order the redhead around.

"My mother was always disappointed I was gold," he said, looking up at the disappearing stars. "Her family was made up entirely of genko, though one of her sisters was silver. Mother was disowned for marrying someone so common as a gold, even if he was a lord's son. But she still expected her children to be black like her. Ever had family problems over something so trifling as fur color, wolf?"

She shook her head. Her problems had always been far worse.

"Just because I don't have the power to use the true magic most genko wield, my mother decides I'm a changeling, a mistake."

He was doing a good job of distracting her from asking why he worked for Kino.

"She didn't hate me. But she always expected the impossible from me. Father always tried to get her to lighten up on me, but she said he was prejudiced by the fact we were both fire foxes. Nothing wrong with that. How she settled for a _mere_ fire fox is beyond me."

Mischa began to wonder if he was leading up to something.

"Kino approached me sometime last century, looking for a shapeshifter to spy for him. As much as I didn't get along with my mother, I wasn't going to leave the family. After a few refusals, Kino got impatient. I'm sure you know how bad a dragon's temper can be when awakened," he said.

She nodded.

"He finally thought up a threat I had to take seriously, and I've been stuck doing the bastard's bidding ever since."

Mischa wanted to ask what it was the dragon held over the fox, but decided it was none of her business, so long as he made no moves to convince Kagome to seeing the dragon.

"Why don't you talk? I know we kitsune are famous for never shutting up, but wolves aren't known to be as silent as you are."

She considered ignoring the question, but decided that, to be fair, she'd have to share part of her past as well. "I am hanyou. You know the problems youkai have with my kind," she said slowly.

"Weakening the blood," he said.

"After the first few beatings, I became very adept at hiding both my scent and myself. Making noise attracts attention."

"That explains why you don't mind talking with the miko," he mused. "She's human, and they'd rather run a hanyou out of town than actually try to kill one."

Mischa considered saying that Kagome wouldn't pay attention to nods of the head, and Mischa had had to learn to communicate verbally with the stubborn miko if she wanted anything. "About Kino?"

"Stuck on that, are you? It's only fair, him being after your miko and all. Though hell if I know why."

"You knew enough to find us."

"Any idiot with the information I was given could find you, given enough time. Miko going to medical school, blue eyes, slightly odd hair color. Of course, I wasn't expecting there to be two."

She looked puzzled. Two?

"Then I realized that the miko magic wasn't yours. That's an interesting necklace, by the way," he said, staring at where the dog tags lay on her chest.

"My face is up here," Mischa said, slightly annoyed.

He brought his gaze back up to her eyes, grinning unabashedly. "Chame tells me there's a binding spell on it. Why's that? Your miko not trust you? Unless you're into that sort of thing."

There was a binding spell on it? Kagome had only mentioned the illusion spell when she had given them to her to replace the broken bead bracelet.

"And you look like you have no idea what I'm talking about," he continued with a slight frown.

Mischa held the tags in her hand and looked at them. Unlike Matsuro, she couldn't see the magical energies imbued in them, so she had taken her cousin at her word that it was only an illusion spell. After all, there was one on them. She rubbed the metal between her fingers, warming the cool tags, but said nothing.

He correctly read her silence as affirmation. "Well don't ask me for help. The genko's the one who can read placed spells. I just can tell that something is there."

"Like what the miko guards?"

"I can't see what it is," he lied.

"You would not have to," she said shrewdly, letting the tags drop back down. "You already know what's there. Just as Chame can truly read what's there."

He looked a bit startled. "Remind me never to think just because a hanyou is part human, they must be stupid as well."

She leveled a cool gaze on him.

He grinned back. "It's not like I've ever met one before."

"Hanyou are customarily killed at birth. Only ones with powerful relatives make it past childhood."

"That explains you and the mutt. He's got his brother, even if he dismisses the relationship, and you've got your grandfather and Tsukikage-sama. Not that she'd actually give a damn about you, but being her great-niece doesn't hurt."

She shrugged. He had it right. "About Kino?" she said again.

"You really don't stay distracted long, do you?" Matsuro took the opportunity to step closer to her as they walked down the empty street. And now that he knew what to look for, it was obvious when the wolf-girl made a small misstep that took her further from him. But still, why the distance? He wasn't a threat.

Unless she somehow thought he was. What would make her believe that? Sure, there was the fact he was in the employ of someone trying to kill her. He paused in his thoughts. Perhaps her paranoia was understandable after all.

"Wolves sink their teeth into something and never let go," she agreed.

"Can I take you up on that offer?"

She answered with a low growl. "It was not an offer. Kino, red."

"You know what he wants. Enough power to destroy all of Honshu, held within the body of one tiny human girl. What they plan to do with it, I don't know. But Kino plans on getting it, no matter who he steps on along the way."

"But Shinin-"

"Life's a game, wolf. They're putting on a show for the audience. Youkai are competitive, you should know that."

"They're not arguing about the details of whatever deal they've made," she said, thinking out loud. "That's just to mislead anyone watching them. They wouldn't understand why the two would suddenly start fighting over who controlled the power in their business. Now they have a reason."

He neither agreed nor disagreed. He could only lead her so far before Kino would know information was leaked. It was, after all, quite possible that someone would catch onto the duo's game of rumors to see that they were really searching for a girl. It was not possible for anyone to discover why the two wanted the girl, no matter how smart they were. Even Shinin didn't know the true meaning behind Kino's obsession with the Higurashi children was- he just wanted to get them before the dragon did.

Matsuro- and through him, Kino- had gotten there first, but that just meant the two girls would have to be watching for Shinin's men. Though Shinin had also made a move. He wondered whose turn it was now. The girls', he assumed, but they didn't have enough information to set up anything but the most basic defense. Which meant someone else was moving now.

"Why are you telling me this?" she asked suspiciously.

"I don't appreciate coercion," he said shortly.

Mischa felt continuing that line of questioning was unsafe. But then again, nothing was safe.

"They are youkai, aren't they? Why have the taiyoukai done nothing?"

"What is there to do anything about?" he said. "It's just business, and nobody is being truly harmed by their actions." He paused, then added, "Yet."

Mischa nodded in agreement. There was little being done that would cause the lords to be alerted. And while attacks on humans by youkai were by no means common occurrences anymore, it would be understandable once it was discovered the human in question was a miko with control of her powers. Nobody liked knowing there was someone out there who could kill them with an act of will.

"What is his daughter's name?"

He was confused by the change in topic. "Ayumi, or something like that. Nasty piece of work she is. Got all of dad's ambitions and just as manipulative as her mom. Kino got rid of that one in a hurry."

Got rid of which one? "Which?"

"The mother. He's overjoyed the girl's growing up to be just like her old man. Barely a century old, and she's got people tripping over themselves to be near her or as far from her as possible."

Mischa growled angrily.

"What, you know her?"

And she had gotten the insufferable girl's number for Souta. No doubt the naïve boy had already called her and told her where he was. And Ayame would report to her father where the youngest descendant of Midoriko was.

"How could I have been so stupid?" she whispered to herself.

"I am a bit difficult to think around, or so I've been told," he said with a grin.

Her look said she was not amused.

"So why are you stupid and what's this got to do with Kino's brat?"

Brat. Souta.

Not caring that it was four in the morning, she ignored her companion, pulled out her cell phone, and dialed the number to the house her aunt was staying in.

"Who're you calling? Won't they be annoyed at getting a call this early in the morning?"

She ignored him as she waited for the call to be answered.

"Hmmm whaa?" was the unintelligible response of the woken woman.

"Aunt Aiko?" she said softly.

"Mischando?" Her aunt's voice sounded much clearer. "Why are you calling so early? Is everything okay down there?"

She hated to ignore the questions, but it was urgent. "Is Souta there?"

Matsuro looked curious at the name and leaned closer to hear the woman's answer. "Of course he is, he's sleeping."

"Make sure." Mischa's voice held none of the fear rushing through her mind.

"Mischando, what is this about?" Aiko's voice was beginning to sound worried.

"Please," Mischa pleaded.

Had it been a lighter moment, he thought, he would have asked her if she could say that again, only with his name tacked on. But it was obvious the woman would ignore anything he said right now, as tied up as she was with checking on the boy.

Mischa could hear footsteps over the line as her aunt walked to the room Souta slept in. Her aunt's horrified intake of breath was answer enough to Mischa's question. Mischa hurled the phone against a nearby wall.

"Damn it all to hell!" she snapped.

Matsuro was startled by the outburst, and was doubly startled by the sudden outpouring of demon energy from the young hanyou's body and the glow coming from her necklace as it came in contact with the demon energy.

"He doesn't have anything they want," she growled angrily to Matsuro.

"He has one thing they want," he said, understanding that Souta was Kagome's brother. She waited for him to continue. "The ability to draw the miko away from her safe spots."

"Like hell they will."

She turned to walk back to the shrine; intent on making sure that there was not a second kidnapping.

"Unless you feel like getting some sleep, which I wouldn't blame you for, I wouldn't be going that way," he told her as he followed her.

"Why?"

"Your aura-reading miko is going to immediately pick up on your anger."

She shrugged, uncaring. If they had grabbed one child this night, they could grab the other as well. She was going to make sure that didn't happen.

She sidestepped the hand reaching out to grab her, but then two hands move quickly to grab her by the arms and spin her around to face an annoyed redhead.

"What she doesn't know won't hurt her," he said.

She glared, breaking free from his hold. "Only too true. It will get her killed."

"Listen, wolf," he growled.

"Do not even think to lecture me, red. Unlike you, I do not run from family."

Amethyst eyes flickered gold as he fought to keep his temper. "Don't change the subject."

The youki she was radiating had been beginning to lessen, but it flared back up. "Only you can? Why should I listen to anything you have to say, when you led Kino to her?"

"He would have found her without my aid. And his child seems to know the boy, from your reaction to her name."

Both had been speaking quietly, knowing yelling would hurt both their ears, and not wanting to call attention to their spat. Mischa opened her mouth to reply, but closed it as she heard someone coming.

"Trouble in paradise?" A scantily clad woman said as she exited a club and noticed the two arguing. Both stared at her. "Once the apologies are done, it makes for the best sex."

Matsuro grinned at the advice, letting some of his focus on the wolf-girl drop. The instant it shifted to the barely-clothed woman, Mischa was off like a shot down the street. He cursed.

"Really, boy, you're supposed to be keeping a better watch on your mark. Did your father teach you to handle women that way?" The woman's form blurred as she spoke. The last few words were spoken in a scolding baritone, as a tall redhead stood where the woman had been.

To an observer, it would be obvious the two were related. The newcomer was taller by a few inches, and had a more mature look to him. To Matsuro's seemingly early twenties, this man was mid-thirties, though his aquamarine eyes said he was much older. Both men's hair was the same dark shade of flamboyant red, orange, and brown.

"Grandfather? I wasn't expecting to see you here." Or anywhere else for that matter. Matsuro did his best to avoid the taiyoukai of the South's attention.

"Glad to see you remember me. Where have you been? My granddaughter's been looking everywhere for you, boy, and I'm not happy about the fact she has to look at all."

"The kit's already found me, Yoko-sama."

"Good. I like having smart grandchildren. What was the hogosha saying about Kino?"

Matsuro blinked confusedly. "The hogosha? You mean the hanyou?"

"No, I meant the wolf pup you were arguing with."

"The hanyou," he said again.

"At least one of my grandchildren is smart. Of course I meant the hanyou, you baka! What was she saying about Kino?"

Everyone seemed to want to know about the dragon right now. And unlike Mischa, Yoko couldn't be put off without insulting the powerful kitsune.

"He hired me to find a miko," Matsuro explained.

"Baka, I already knew he had you working for him." That admittance surprised the younger kitsune, who had thought he had hidden himself well inside Kino's organization. "What was the **hanyou**," he emphasized, "saying about Kino?"

"She found out I was working for him and had led him to her cousins."

The other redhead looked angry. Couldn't be helped, Matsuro thought.

"You led that megalomaniac right to the scions? Are you out of your fucking mind, you stupid kit?" he roared. Matsuro took a step backwards, away from his angry grandfather. "Do you even know what he plans on doing with them?"

"Not really. I'd imagine torture them until one of them forked over the Shikon no Tama so he could wish on it."

"And you led him right to it!"

"I didn't know she had it until Chame said the girl was a guardian! Kino said that one of the two would know _where_ the jewel was kept, not that the girl actually _kept_ it!"

"And why was the hogosha so angry with you?"

Matsuro frowned at the title. "Why do you keep calling the wolf a hogosha?"

"Because she is one, you fool. Why else would a hanyou be allowed to stay near a guardian?"

Matsuro had thought it was because the two women were related. Obviously something else was going on here. "Only youkai can be appointed hogosha," he pointed out. "They're supposed to be bodyguards with magic. And a hanyou is less magically-inclined than a rock."

His grandfather gave him a knowing smile. "That's for us lords to worry about, boy. You're to worry about the fact you'll be going under investigation for letting Kino discover the whereabouts of the cursed jewel."

"He would have found it anyway," Matsuro pointed out. "His youngest child knows the younger of the scions."

"Now that I hadn't heard of. How do you know this?"

"The hanyou panicked after I told her Kino's daughter's name was Ayame and called her aunt to check on the boy. He wasn't there."

It was Yoko's turn to curse. "How did he find where they were?"

Matsuro shook his head, not knowing the answer.

"Where did the hanyou run off to so quickly?"

"Likely back to the shrine. It's beyond me why she thinks the miko should know her brother is missing without even bothering to find out where he is."

Yoko shook his head. "The workings of a hanyou's mind are beyond anyone's capability to comprehend, including the hanyou's. And on top of that, she's female. Now where's my granddaughter?"

"Asleep in someone's backyard. Pretty smart of her to sleep in animal form. Of course, she at least looks a bit like a dog. My form's too big to look like anything but a rhinoceros-sized gold fox with four too many tails."

The older kitsune chuckled. "There are safe houses, you realize."

"None that would take me in," Matsuro pointed out.

"And whose fault is that, boy? You're the one who willingly decided to work for Kino."

Matsuro didn't tell his grandfather that there was nothing _willing_ about his servitude. And with the death of his father, Kino's promise was broken and the only thing keeping him working for the dragon was the fact Kino didn't know that Matsuro knew the dragon's men had killed the wandering kitsune. Few people would believe a gold fox and black fox to be related, so Chame's presence didn't set off alarms.

Just a few more deaths, a few more betrayals, and Kino would know why it was gold kitsune who ruled the South, and not the more powerful blacks or silvers.

Because they were the ones from whom everyone else had learned the phrase 'revenge is a dish best served cold.' A kitsune served no one but himself and his taiyoukai.

**-- Mid Morning --**

"Shouldn't she be back by now?" Kagome asked Inu-Yasha, after waking up again at eight, and this time staying awake.

"Quit asking me! I don't know! If you're so worried about her, why don't you sense for her?"

"I've already tried! She's too far away for me to sense."

"Don't you have work to get to?" he asked, remembering the mad dashes of the previous days.

She looked at her watch. Quarter to nine. And without Mischa here to get an undignified ride from, she would have to bicycle. And she'd have to leave now if she wanted to get there on time.

"Thanks for the reminder! And I can keep my senses open for her ki on the way!" She grabbed her purse, pulled the surprised hanyou out of the house, let go of his hand to lock the door, then trotted over to the well house to retrieve her beat-up bicycle.

She noticed him following her as she pushed the bicycle to the shrine's entrance. "What are you doing?"

"That stupid pup still isn't back, and since she wheedled a promise out of me, I'm watching you until she shows back up."

"I don't need anybody's protection." She said angrily as she guided the bike down the stairs.

"Feh."

She ignored the man jogging beside her as she weaved her way through traffic. As she neared her destination, a strange sense of wrongness came over her. And with it, she noticed Mischa's aura, barely visible through the wall of youki surrounding her.

And what mess had her cousin gotten herself tangled into this time?

_("They don't care about me, Kags. The fights are about you.")_

That would explain why it was on the way to the restaurant.

"Oi, girl," Inu-Yasha said as Kagome sped up. "What the hell are you doing?"

"I can sense Mischa," she said, unfazed by his ability to keep up with her. "And she's in trouble."

"Stupid wolf can't keep out of a fight for a day," he said. "Though it's better than her running. Took forever to get her out of doing that."

Kagome wanted to ask him what he was talking about- Mischa, running from something?- but she had arrived at the building Mischa's energy was coming from. She noted the number of people surrounding the wolf-girl's energy had severely dropped. Obviously Mischa was holding her own.

It was the same building Inu-Yasha had warned her about earlier. Hadn't he told her that the building held an artifact that guarded against miko powers? Why could she sense the youkai now, when she hadn't before?

Ignoring his warning, she leapt off her bike and rushed into the building, Inu-Yasha behind her as he muttered curses. Silver and red magical energy surrounding the door shattered as Kagome lashed out at the wards with her purification powers. She stepped quickly through, looking around.

The energy was coming from above her.

"Finally I can smell her," Inu-Yasha said, as Kagome stopped to look for a stairwell.

"Yeah, well, help me find the stairs," she said. Mischa's primarily silver ki was snapping out at all the youkai surrounding her, a far cry from its usual calm silver and brown. Whatever was going on up there, she knew it wasn't good.

Inu-Yasha noted the cheap material used for the ceiling. "How far up are they?"

Kagome didn't pause in her search for a set of stairs as she answered. "At least two floors. Maybe three."

He smirked. "Ever been thrown through a wall in one of these old buildings?"

She stopped to look at him. "Eh? Do I look like the sort of person to go running through walls?"

So that's a no." He smirked. "Well then, this'll be your first time."

Before she had time to wonder what he was talking about, he had wrapped his arm around her waist and leapt up through the ceiling above them, bringing her with him. She shrieked, clutching onto his arms, closing her eyes tightly to keep dust from getting in them.

"Oi, wench, keep it down! That fucking hurts," he said as he landed lightly on the second floor.

She was too busy coughing to argue with him before he leapt up again, crashing through the ceiling and making debris fall on both them and the floors below. Kagome kept coughing, and Inu-Yasha quickly let go of her with a snort. She collapsed unceremoniously to the floor, one hand barely missing falling into the hole their entrance had left.

"That hurt, you know!" Kagome yelled up at the hanyou, who rolled his eyes.

"Humans are such weaklings," he said, reaching out a hand to pull her up. "I've been through tougher walls and never even broke a bone and hear you are whining about some cardboard ceiling you went through, when I'm the one who actually hit it."

His tirade was cut short by a strange voice. "How the hell did they get in? I thought we had wards up."

Kagome looked over in the direction of the voice. Maybe now wasn't the time to be lecturing her strange companion about how normal people got around.

She and Inu-Yasha were standing in a large room with little furnishings, near one of its walls. On the far side of the room, near a large window, a small army of youkai surrounded a tall woman. Bodies were strewn about the room haphazardly, showing the skill the woman had with the long metal rod she was whirling expertly to keep the thirty-odd youkai around her at bay.

Kagome shrank back into Inu-Yasha, remembering the last time she had seen Mischa using a staff instead of her fists. The hanyou had tried to kill her.

Two more youkai dropped as Mischa continued to dodge blows and quickly retaliate.

"What the fuck is going on here?" The youkai further from the fight turned at Inu-Yasha's words.

One grinned. "Forget the bitch, the miko just showed up."

Inu-Yasha disentangled himself from Kagome and rushed into the fight, smirking. Kagome stared as he pulled a rusted katana out of nowhere, and almost fell over when it transformed into a huge, deadly great sword.

With practiced ease, the two hanyou fought the youkai who had changed their target from the silver-eyed wolf to the young miko standing near the large hole in the floor. Kagome shook herself out of her daze to look around for a makeshift weapon. She noticed something glinting underneath some of the rubble their entrance had caused, and knelt down to pick it up.

It was a set of blood-spattered dog tags, the metal chain broken. She noticed pieces of the chain all about the floor. It looked as if it had been purposefully broken, or else ripped off. She looked up at Mischa. She was grinning wickedly as demon after demon crumpled under her blows. Again, the two red stripes on her right cheek had gained twins on her left. Her eyes glittered a malicious silver.

Kagome only knew one way to make her cousin return to her usual state, but with Inu-Yasha there as well, she couldn't use a controlled burst of purification energy to destroy the youkai and knock the hanyou-turned-youkai back into her human state. She had no idea how the energy would react to Inu-Yasha.

And she couldn't use a single-target spell without having Mischa get hit by the demons attacking her when she fell unconscious from the energy overload.

She clenched the tags and broken chain in her hands. What to do, what to do?

Only one thing to do, she decided. Kill the rest of the youkai in the room, and then worry about un-evilling the older woman.

Decision made, purification energy wound about the miko, causing the youkai in the room to move further away from her. Both Mischa and Inu-Yasha ignored the energy, intent on their opponents.

Concentrating, Kagome walked calmly towards the other woman's fight. Inu-Yasha said something, but she was too tied up in her spell to pay it close attention. One brave youkai took a swing at her with his claws. She grabbed the hand inches away from her face, and held onto it as he screamed from the pain of touching the holy energy. A small burst of power, and the scream ended, the demon turning to dust.

On and on it went, Inu-Yasha slicing his opponents in two, Kagome reaching a glowing hand out to dust someone who came too close, and on the far side of the room, silver eyes watching the miko's progress as their owner gracefully dodged blows from those demons still concentrating on attacking her.

Three things happened at once. Mischa made one final swing with the sharpened pole, finally annoyed by the attacks, and four heads fell to the ground. Inu-Yasha neatly sliced the last remaining youkai in two as it prepared to claw open the Kagome's unprotected back. And Kagome, seeing that there was no one else to kill, sent a burst of purification energy in Mischa's direction to cause the youkai to revert to one of her other forms.

The woman nimbly dodged the energy, and it crashed through the window behind her.

"Not this time, miko," the wolf said. Giving the two a cocky salute with her makeshift weapon, she stepped backwards out the window.

"What the fuck?" Inu-Yasha said, as the two raced to the window to look down to try and find the woman.

She was kneeling on the roof of a blue sedan waiting at a red light, using the metal pipe she still held to keep her balanced. Her tail was hidden under the brown jacket she had zipped closed, leaving only her facial markings and inhuman silver eyes to tell onlookers something wasn't right with the girl. She stood and looked up at them.

Kagome didn't hear her say anything, but beside her, Inu-Yasha stiffened.

The light turned green, and Kagome could only watch as the car sped away, the wolf youkai still standing on its roof.

"Kage," she whispered. "Mischa, what happened?"

"How the fuck did she go youkai?" He asked, replacing his rusted katana into the nothingness he had pulled it from.

Kagome opened her hand to show him the dog tags. "The one holds the illusion spell, the other has a binding spell on it to keep her from transforming. The chain's in pieces."

"Did they fucking want her to go demon, or did they just not know?"

Kagome recalled how Kage had attacked her the first time she had been freed. It was possible someone had learned of it, and planned on exploiting it to make Kagome kill Mischa to keep from being killed herself.

"They wanted her to," she said. "The other time she turned youkai, she attacked me. I knocked her unconscious that time, but she's gotten better since then. Where'd that sword come from?" She asked, recalling its strange appearance and disappearance.

"My illusion covers it. Humans carry handguns these days, not swords, and I'd rather look as normal as possible around them."

Kagome's gaze returned to the broken window. "Where do you think she's going?"

He shook his head. "She's going to get herself killed, whatever it is she's doing."

Kagome watched amusedly as a harried-looking man with red hair fought against the flow of traffic to go into the restaurant across the street. He looked a lot like Matsuro, she thought, but he had a very different ki. Instead of Matsuro's soft green-gold, the man's was a hardened red-gold, almost copper. She would have thought the two were related, had Chame not said her father was dead.

She remembered why she was here. "Oh gods, I'm so late!" she said, dashing to the hole in the floor to climb down.

Inu-Yasha snickered as he watched her disappear, only to reappear dashing across the street. Every time he saw her, she was running late for something. He frowned, recalling the odd words the youkai had spoken as she disappeared.

_(Silver made eye contact with topaz. \\ _'Kino is the true enemy. Shinin is just a distraction. I'll take care of him.' _\\ )_

He would have thought the years among humans would have caused the younger hanyou to forget youkai speech, but that was obviously not the case.

What had she learned overnight to tell her that Kino was dangerous? And why had she never returned to the shrine?

He noticed the miko had dropped the dog tags on the ground. Picking them up, he noted the blood on them was only Mischa's. They must have cut her up trying to get the tags off. But why remove a binding spell? The sane had more self-restraint, and were less likely to kill people attacking them.

He recalled the scent of fear coming off Kagome as she spoke of some other time Mischa had gone youkai. The hanyou had attacked her. Perhaps whomever it was who ordered these youkai to take the tags wanted Mischa to do it again.

They obviously didn't understand that when a hanyou went rogue, they attacked anything near them. They wouldn't actively hunt someone down.

Mischa had sounded surprisingly sane as she spoke to him from the car roof, though her body language hadn't been that of the wolf hanyou he had helped raised.

There was writing imprinted on the tags, he noticed.

The one tag was normal. '_Meirin Mischando. Please return to the Sunset Shrine_.'

The other was anything _but_ normal. Engraved on one side was '_Kazoku no kase_' and below that '_giri._' Bonds of family? But why would she use _kase_, as if she were shackled to her family? Nothing she had said to him had sounded like she bore a grudge against the people she had been persuaded to protect. She even seemed to like the little chatterbox that couldn't tell time. And _giri_? Sense of duty, honor? That was to be expected of a wolf, but it clashed with the first part.

He flipped it over. Written on the other side in tiny black kanji, Mischa's sloppy penmanship recognizable at once, was '_Kurosawa_- _Kagemusha_.' Who were they?

"Fucking Meirin Akira," he said. "Would never be in this mess if that stupid kid hadn't gotten a promise out of me." He tucked the slim pieces of metal and the broken chain into his pocket to return to the miko. He was going to have a hell of a time finding one crazy wolf in a city of humans.

**-- Late Morning --**

"You look familiar," Kagome told the man asking her for coffee. "Have we met before?"

He shook his head, auburn locks moving to hide his eyes. "I'd remember as lovely a face as yours, my girl. You might have met one of my relatives. We have a tendency to all look alike."

"Well then, send your youngest my way, if they're all as handsome as you are, sir," Kagome said with a wink, jotting down the request for coffee, no creamer and extra sugar.

"I doubt you're interested in a girl," he said, grinning back, "but her brother looks to be about your age."

She gave him another smile and returned to the kitchen.

"Kagome-san, you have _got_ to tell me how you get all the handsome men at your tables," Rin said as she pinned up an order.

"Fortune favors me," she replied, quickly grabbing a mug and pouring coffee into it. "I think she knows I'm not looking for a guy and is trying to convince me otherwise."

Rin sighed, then placed her hand over her heart and said in a serious voice, "I solemnly swear I will never chase after men again if it'll get me customers as glompy as the ones that always sit at Kagome's tables."

Kagome giggled. "Rin-san, that's not going to work. Fortune's going to know you're still doing it to get guys. Do it for yourself. Why be dependent on someone else for your happiness?"

"Sex is more fun with a partner," Rin said with a wink.

"Mou, Rin-san, that's not what I meant!" And Kagome escaped out of the kitchen to bring the familiar-looking redhead his coffee. She could still hear Rin snickering as the doors swung shut.

She set the mug down on the table. "Your coffee, sir."

Aquamarine eyes sparkled with open amusement as he noted her blush. "Should I ask what goes on back in the kitchen?"

Her blush deepened. "Just talk, I assure you. Nanasawa-san would have all our heads if anything besides cooking went on in there."

"Ah, but the young are all rebellious," he said.

Their conversation reminded her of why he looked familiar. "Do you know Kain Matsuro, sir? The two of you look so much alike you could be brothers."

He looked thoughtful, then grinned. "Do you want the truth or the cover story?" he asked mischievously.

"The cover story," she said. "I'd rather not be fainting dead away at your actual age."

He grinned. "I'm sure you have a stronger system than that. I'm a cousin on his father's side. He's been estranged from the family for years, but is slowly being forgiven."

"Sounds like a good cover. Did Mat-kun talk you into checking up on me? Honestly, Mischa is _so_ paranoid, and it rubs off on everyone she comes in contact with."

"No, it was something she said that made me come here." Like Matsuro, only his eyes showed how serious his words were. "I suggest calling your mother, if the pup hasn't told you already."

Kagome looked out the window to the building she had been in that morning, then back to the redhead. "I haven't seen her since last night. Is it anything bad?"

"Possibly."

"Higurashi, quit flirting with the goddamned customers already! Every day this week, I'm telling you this. If you keep this up, girl, you're going to find yourself working in the kitchen all shift!" The manager shouted from where he was showing the new girl the intricacies of the cash register.

Kagome frowned a little, then said with a grin to the redhead, "That's my cue, jiisan."

"Call me old again and I'll use you for fish bait," he said, eyes twinkling as he frowned at her.

Kagome chuckled as she walked off. Mischa may not like kitsune, she thought to herself, but she certainly did. They were much more fun than the serious-minded Mischa.

Her smile disappeared as she recalled her words to the youkai. She really hadn't seen Mischa since last night. Kage wasn't Mischa, she was sure of it.

Would Inu-Yasha be able to go rogue like Mischa had, or had he picked up a seal somewhere as well? She wasn't sure if she could handle one hanyou-turned-youkai, much less two. She'd have to ask him the next time she saw him.

And what had Mischa said to the kitsune to cause him to seek Kagome out? How had they even come across each other? And why did he tell her to call her mother? Had something happened where she and Souta were staying near Ishikari?

A thought struck Kagome. If these youkai were after Kagome for power, was it possible for them to seek out Souta as well?

But she still had hours to go before the end of her shift. And who knew if anyone would actually be in the house to answer the phone when she called. Why couldn't the kitsune have told her what Mischa had said to him? None of the youkai she had come across had been in any rush to give her information, she realized. Maybe it was from their years of hiding themselves from humans.

"Plate's up for table fourteen," one of the cooks said, sliding an unappetizing dish of vegetables in her direction.

Kagome sighed. Now wasn't the time to be thinking. There were tables to serve, and she'd be in big trouble with Nanasawa-san if the customers were left waiting. Letting her train of thought drop, she returned to her work.

Only Rin noticed the lack of cheerfulness about her coworker as the day passed. And none of her attempts to cheer the younger girl up succeeded in getting more than a big faked smile and a quiet sigh as soon as she thought no one was listening. Rin knew the girl was single, so she obviously hadn't gotten into a fight with her boyfriend. Maybe Kagome was love-struck? She shook her head. No, she was acting all wrong for that. She was acting like someone had died.

Checking to make sure Nanasawa was busy closing his sainted cash register, Rin approached the girl as she wiped down tables in preparation for tomorrow's work.

"Kagome-san, is everything all right? You've been acting odd all day," she asked.

Kagome looked down at her feet. "It's nothing important, Rin-san. I guess I'm just worried about my grades for my finals."

"Don't lie, Kagome-san. You got those already, and passed with flying colors, or so you told everyone many times last Friday."

Kagome had forgotten about that.

"So what is it really? You know I'm here for you," Rin said, completely serious. "Someone die?"

"Mischa and I got into a fight last night," Kagome said. "She left in a huff and I haven't seen her since. It's stupid," Kagome complained, "and I know she's older than me and could beat the tar out of anybody thinking to rob her, but I can't help thinking that something awful has happened to her."

"There's nothing wrong with worrying, Kagome-san," Rin said, "but don't let it eat you alive. She's probably just getting a good shag and will come back tonight like nothing happened."

Kagome couldn't help but grin at Rin's suggestion. "Like Mischa would even know what to do with a guy," she said, sticking her tongue out at Rin. "All the guys she brings home end up talking with me, not her."

"Good communication skills are key ingredients to a healthy relationship," Rin said sagely. "That's why whenever any of my boys decide to start learning them, I show them the door."

Kagome sighed. Rin couldn't be tied down to one man anymore than water could stop being wet. She was thankful Rin hadn't been in the day before, when the fox had shown up with his sister and ordered dinner, and asked if Kagome was free for dessert.

It was a complete accident when she tripped over her own feet and spilled a full coffee pot into his lap. Nanasawa-san had even scolded her for yet again ruining a customer's meal with her klutziness.

"Rin-san, your attitude about men and relationships leaves me speechless. Perhaps you should tell them to your current housemate before he gets too comfortable?"

"Eh, I was getting bored of him anyway. But seriously, Kagome-san, trust that your cousin can look after herself. She's a grown woman."

Questions asked, reasonable answers provided, advice freely shared, Rin bade the young woman farewell.

Kagome had felt like pointing out Mischa was still a child by her kind's standards, but common sense had taken over in the nick of time. Blurting out that Mischa wasn't human was not a good idea.

"Don't forget you're off tomorrow, Higurashi," the manager said as he put money into the cash box. "I expect you to find those men of yours that have been coming around and tell them to stop. I pay you to work, not chit-chat with your friends."

"They're not-" she paused, taking into account the annoyed look on his face. "Yes, sir, Nanasawa-san. No more flirting with the customers. What if they ask first?"

"You tell horrible jokes, Higurashi. And if you were serious, the answer's no. Now get out of here before I have to pay you overtime."

Kagome giggled and returned the rags and soap to the kitchen, retrieved her purse from the break room, and clocked out. "Sayonara, Nanasawa-san! I'll be back!"

"But no more boys!" He scolded. "You do that on your time. I don't need another Rin running around my restaurant."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "Yes, mother. I will not bring boys to work." The door closed behind her. As she unlocked her bicycle from the rack it was chained to, she muttered, "Not that I told any of them where I worked. Or told them that I needed a babysitter. When Mischa gets back, I'm so pounding her senseless for carrying a contagious case of paranoia."

If Mischa ever returned to normal, she thought sadly. What else could go wrong today?


	12. Eleven: History Catching Up On You

**Chapter Eleven: History Catching Up On You**

"_Thou call'st me dog before though hadst cause, _

_But since I am a dog, beware my fangs."_

-Shakespeare

**-- May 20, Tokyo, Japan --**

Kagome was rather glad she wasn't working today. She wouldn't have liked to call in sick. And she definitely wasn't feeling well. It wasn't a good day for her.

Actually, it hadn't been too great of a month. Learning youkai had been trying to kill/kidnap her for years, meeting up with some perverted kitsune, getting introduced to yet another grumpy hanyou, watching Mischa-turned-Kage beat the crap out of youkai for who-knows-what reason, then not managing to get Mischa back, and just last night, she had gotten a barely coherent call from her mother telling her she'd been talking to the police all day and that Souta was missing.

Yes, it definitely wasn't a very good month for Higurashi Kagome, and the only thing keeping her from saying 'to hell with it all' and kicking her guests out on their proverbial, and literal, tails was the fact the tails were just too cute to see the last of.

So, without Mischa there to safeguard the shrine from perverts by talking Kagome out of it, Matsuro and Chame had claimed Mischa's bed- complete with jokes about preferring Mischa being in it, though Chame had hushed her brother up rather quickly. Kagome had offered the sofa (or chair, or window seat, or anything, so long as he kept his grumpy self indoors) to Inu-Yasha, but he had taken up nightly vigilance in the shrine's trees. She wasn't entirely sure which one.

Souta was missing, Mischa had gone youkai and also gone missing, Matsuro was noticeably on edge, Inu-Yasha was pissed- though she had figured out that was the usual thing for him, and only Chame seemed normal. Yet again Kagome question her definition of normality, considering Chame's physical age against the age she vocally resembled.

Where was Souta? How long would it take for Mischa to return to normal, if she ever would? Did she really meet with Matsuro, as Chame had quietly said to her? Mischa didn't like the kitsune, so it would have been important. It must have been something she had learned in their two days of research. She struggled to recall Mischa's few words that night.

Something about Matsuro and Kino?

"Chame-chan, do you remember what it was Mischa asked Mat-kun about the night she disappeared?" Kagome asked the kitsune drawing beside her.

Chame looked up from her art to the miko sitting against the base of the Goshinboku. "He told us he'd look into Shinin. Kage asked him if he'd look into Kino as well. I said we would."

Matsuro hadn't replied, Kagome noted. Mischa had probably noticed that the moment Chame spoke. "Please don't call her Kage, Chame-chan."

"Is this because she went youkai? You know she's not herself right now; and anything she does, it isn't really her doing it."

Kagome fingered the tags in her pocket. It was nice of Inu-Yasha to return them. Maybe he wasn't so bad. "That's just it, Chame-chan. The youkai calls herself Kage. You call Mischa Kage. It's," Kagome stopped, trying to understand what it was she was trying to say.

"Confusing?" Chame asked. "Emotionally unsettling, even though your mind knows the Kage I speak of and the Kage you speak of are separate?"

"Are they really?" Kagome asked softly.

"Don't even think that, Shin-sama! When a hanyou goes rogue, they completely lose their mind! My Kage isn't your Kage." Chame stopped. "That _is_ confusing, isn't it?"

"She was sane," Kagome whispered. "Kage is sane. Even Inu-Yasha said so."

Chame didn't understand that. But then, she had never known any hanyou beyond the dog and the wolf.

"Did you talk to koinu about it? He's hanyou, he should understand more about his kind than me." She picked her crayon back up and returned to her work.

"He didn't understand it anymore than I did. Less, maybe, because to him, it's impossible. To me, it was just frightening. Don't call her Kage, Chame-chan," Kagome implored. "It makes me think that the two really are one."

Perhaps they were, Chame mused, absently adding in another splotch of red to her picture. She hadn't met the youkai alter ego, so she wouldn't be able to tell. But it would be something to watch for. "If you say so, Shin-sama. But she's always been Kage to me, so it will be hard thinking of her with a different name."

"What are you going to call her?"

"Musha," she said with a giggle, swapping to a new crayon. "It's a play off your Mischa, you see. It sounds a lot like it, but it means 'warrior.' And she's come a long way in that respect."

"It's a good name," Kagome smiled tolerantly. "But what do you mean she's come a long way?"

Chame shook her head sadly. "Life's rough on the outcasts," she told the woman, still coloring her art. "She was raised surrounded by youkai. How do you think she learned to fight, once she stopped being afraid of her own shadow?"

_She_ was afraid of Mischa's shadow, Kagome thought with bitter irony. Anyone would be.

"I really shouldn't say anything else," Chame said. "It's not my place to tell you, and she'll beat me up again if she finds out I told you she used to be a big scaredy-cat."

Kagome giggled. "Okay, Chame-chan, I won't press you for more details. At least about Mischa. Now Inu-Yasha is a different story," she said thoughtfully.

"Koinu got meaner temper than a mule!" Chame said, stopping in her art to look back up at Kagome.

"Why do you sound more childish when you speak about him?" Kagome asked, curious. Chame was well spoken for her seemingly eight, but there were times when she truly acted it. Like now, Kagome thought, noting the crayons scattered about the grass.

"I've got to think about sounding like an adult," Chame said. "He is older than me, so I automatically think I should behave my age."

"Aren't you acting your age when you speak like an adult?"

"Human age, maybe. But I'm still a kit. And koinu is fun to make angry with childish pranks."

"How'd you meet him?"

"Boring taiyoukai functions," Chame said, waving her brown crayon offhandedly. "His brother made him come along to some, and Dad liked having me go so I would meet youkai other than the lesser ones we met in our journeys."

"Uh?" Kagome said intelligently.

Chame giggled. "Inu-Yasha didn't tell you his brother's one of the taiyoukai? Maybe he wouldn't," she said thoughtfully. "They can't stand each other. They give a whole new meaning to the term 'dog eat dog world.'" She snickered.

Kagome looked startled. "Dog eat dog?" She repeated, wondering what other youkai idiosyncrasies would show up.

"Not literally," Chame said. "But they like to fight each other. And neither believes in pulling their punches. Good thing youkai heal fast, or they'd spend more time lying in bed healing than being at work. Though they'd probably have died decades ago without that healing. I hear koinu took off Sesshoumaru-sama's arm once. Once he stopped bleeding, he proceeded to pound the mutt so far into oblivion he was unconscious for two months! Though Sesshoumaru-sama's arm didn't completely regenerate for a whole year, so koinu got off light for that one."

"You've met him?" Kagome didn't want to go into the gory details of the brothers' fighting, and Chame looked a bit too excited by the idea of fighting for Kagome to want to stay on that subject. So why not ask the girl for details about one of the mysterious 'lords' they kept speaking of.

"No, only seen him a couple times. And watched a few of their fights. They don't care who watches, or where they are when they fight, so long as someone ends up beaten unconscious. Sesshoumaru-sama usually wins. He's got centuries more experience, but Inu-Yasha's sword evens things up some. Strange sword," Chame said. "It's got layers of magic woven into it that I can't even _begin_ to read, and that koinu has yet to tap into. I doubt there's anyone alive who understands anything about that sword."

"Yes, it is a strange sword," Kagome agreed, recalling its appearance and transformation the day before.

"Yoko-sama found my brother, and he said he wanted to talk with us. So take care of my stuff, would you?" Without waiting for a reply, Chame hopped up and dashed inside, calling her brother. She could hear muffled giggles and curses as Chame did something to Inu-Yasha.

Kagome looked down at the reams of doodles that Chame had been working on and stared.

The one Chame had just finished looked more like a photograph than the crayon doodles of a child.

A young girl, no older than five, lay hidden underneath some large bushes. She stared with wide cobalt eyes at another dark-haired girl her size with black fox ears and tails as the girl reached a tentative hand out to her. Kagome thought it looked as if the one was trying to coax the other out of hiding. A somewhat familiar redhead with five gold tails approached the two, looking beyond angry, blue fire surrounding him.

Recognizing the smaller kitsune immediately (Chame had even added in the bright yellow shirt she was wearing today), Kagome could guess who the other two were- Mischa and Chame's father. Mischa's torn gi was more brown and red than the greenish blue it was supposed to be. What was visible of her arms and face was no better, and Kagome could only imagine how bad the girl's lower half was, considering the number of thorns Chame had drawn on the shrubbery.

What had cause Chame to draw this? Was it a memory, or did she just have a gory imagination? If it was a memory, what had happened to Mischa? If it was just art, why the models and subject matter she had chosen? It was unsettling whichever it was. She could feel the pain of the girl so clearly, the gold kitsune striding with a look of righteous anger, the sadness drawn through the entire thing. It was like she was actually watching it happen, though what had happened she wasn't sure.

Kagome looked at another picture. A tall woman with striking amethyst eyes, dark hair, and black fox ears had her mouth opened, looking as if she were telling off the other person in the picture. He was the same man from the other picture, she noticed, and he looked just as angry as she did as he held a small dark-haired child in his arms, her face buried in the crook of his neck.

She assumed the two females were Chame and her mother. The woman had the same eyes as Matsuro. She obviously was angry with the child for something, and her father was protecting the girl from the woman's anger.

A third crayon photograph. A party scene, most of the people scribbled in with little detail. Five forms stood out distinctly. A different Inu-Yasha, long, oddly white hair streaked with red as he started taking a punch bowl off his head. His face didn't look to be red from the punch, she thought with a giggle, noting the good job Chame did at making him look angry. Two redheaded, gold-tailed kitsune were holding each other up as they laughed, and an impossibly tiny Chame hid in her father's loose hair, likely muffling her laughter and trying to avoid Inu-Yasha's wrath. Another man with long silver hair looked bored with the entire thing as he watched the proceedings from across the room. Two red-purple stripes adorned each cheek, and a blue crescent moon was lightly drawn in on his forehead. She thought he looked a bit like Inu-Yasha, but more cold and inhuman. His brother, she guessed.

The humorous scene made for a nice change from the painful emotions the other two drawings evoked.

A fourth picture, this time a painful family portrait. She recognized them all. The dark-haired woman stood off from a trio of redheads. The oldest looking of the three looked angrily over at the woman, aquamarine eyes narrowed into a harsh glare. Kagome thought she saw flecks of red in them, but decided it was probably Chame's urge to add more feeling to the picture. His auburn bangs parted to show an orange starburst in the center of his forehead. She noticed he didn't have any other facial markings. The other grown redhead looked resignedly over at the woman, his eyes a silent plea for a reason, as the third- a boy a bit younger than Souta- buried his face in the man's chest, hands grasping at the man's shirt.

Chame had never met her brother before a few days ago, Kagome thought, but she had lived with her family long enough to understand why he had left. She had given up on denying the truth in Chame's pictures. No amount of imagination could so completely create the raw emotions in each of the pictures.

She refused to look at the ones left. Chame had been sitting here all morning, and there were sheets of art stacked up, with only this one stack set aside. She got the feeling Chame had meant for her to look through them. She gathered up the scattered papers, forcing herself to stop looking at them, to stop thinking about what was drawn on them. Chame had said to look _after_ her art, not look _at_ it.

"Oi, wench, what's with the mess?" Inu-Yasha said as he walked up.

"Just cleaning up some doodles Chame made."

"Chuck 'em," he advised. "You're not the stupid kit's maid, for fuck's sake. If she can't clean her shit up, she obviously don't want it."

Chame wasn't the only one who sounded immature, she thought with a grin. Obviously extended life spans meant your mind aged slower than normal as well.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing," she chirped, stuffing crayons back into their box. "So what mystery are we clearing up today?"

He snorted. "It ain't that easy, girl. The wolf's laid low, hasn't done anything that made the news. Kino's busy siccing his lawyers on Shinin, and is tied up with paperwork in that pile of horseshit he calls his office. And Myouga told me Shinin is to busy fighting off someone cleansing his underground to be doing anything else."

"Huh?"

"Vigilante youkai, I guess. They're rare, but it happens."

"You don't suppose Mat-kun and Chame-chan-"

"No, I don't. Not to mention even that stupid fire fox is smart enough to keep his sister away from Shinin. He may be a pervert, but at least he takes a refusal as a rejection, not as an invitation."

Kagome stared. "You mean that he's some sort of pedophile?"

"You don't want to know about him anymore than I want to tell you about him. Serpent youkai ain't got the best reputations."

Kagome cursed her overactive imagination and tried to stop thinking about his words.

"Kino took the boy," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"Shinin's not into boys. But like you said, Kino has a daughter, and she's probably just as nasty as her dad. She probably asked him for the kid, without even thinking that you and the kid are related."

"His name's Souta, you know," she snapped.

"Feh."

Jerk. She wondered why she never bothered to call him that aloud. Maybe because she had better manners. Maybe because she didn't want to see if he'd use that weird sword on humans. Not that he'd actually need a sword to attack her. Souta's unarmed karate moves certainly hurt when he tried them out on her. Thank goodness Mischa had taken over sparring practice for her. Though they had certainly been jumpy the past few months about sparring. Had Mischa finally gotten sick of Souta trying to kick her and hit him too hard?

"So you coming or what?"

"Where?"

"I just fucking told you. To find Kino."

Kagome stared blankly. Had she gotten so tied up in her thoughts she hadn't heard him, or was he just trying to trick her away from the house and the possible phone call from any of her relatives? "Well..." she stalled.

"Look, do you want to find your fucking brother or not? Shinin's too tied up in problems to be grabbing a kid, but Kino's not, and those are the only people after you."

That we know of, she silently added on. "But we don't even know where to start," she said.

"The obvious way is to go to the company and ask about him. There's also ransacking your brother's room for the dragon-spawn's address."

"Dragon-spawn?"

"Kino is a dragon youkai, Shinin is a serpent youkai. Don't you pay any attention to stuff you're told? It's amazing you're still alive, the way you wander through life with your senses closed."

She stood, straightening Chame's papers as she did so. "Well if you don't like the way I act, why not tell me what I should be doing," she snapped at him, daring him to reply.

"Training. Tokyo's hopping with youkai right now, and you set off major alarms, since you obviously can't hide your power. And I ain't seen you using weapons of some kind, and there _are_ those youkai immune to magic."

"Really? But a miko's power is meant to counteract demons," Kagome said. She didn't bother telling him she could use most basic weapons- she didn't like fighting, and only resorted to it when there was no other means for a peaceful solution.

"As if humans are the only ones able to evolve." He snorted. "Miko have been around for over a thousand years and you think some youkai haven't learned how to counteract purification energy?"

"I guess that's reasonable," Kagome said as she walked back to the house. "So we're going to find Kino and see if he has Souta?"

"That's what I said," Inu-Yasha replied as he followed her.

**-----**

Kurosawa Eri paced the hallway, running her prepared speech through her mind. She felt a little bad for telling Kagome she was on vacation, but Eri didn't want her worrying about the job interview. Kagome would be heartbroken if Eri didn't get the job and get to move back to Tokyo. So Eri thought it better to spring the good news upon her after the fact. And not mention the entire thing if she didn't get the job.

She heard footsteps coming her way and stopped in her pacing to see who the newcomer was. He was a little taller than her and had the lean muscular look of a runner. His short dark brown hair was completely mussed up and his chocolate brown eyes looked surprised and relieved to see her. Cute, she thought. He had the 'innocent little boy' look down pat, what with that hair. She wished she had a comb.

"Kurosawa-san, what are you doing here?" he asked in a rather young voice.

She blinked, recognizing the voice. "Souta-chan? You've- grown," she said, slightly shocked that she had been checking her best friend's little brother out. Serious jailbait, she scolded herself. "I'm here to give a presentation to Kino-sama. He does all the hiring here, even for something as minor as janitor."

"You're trying to get a job as a janitor?" he asked, puzzled.

"No!" she shrieked. "Have you seen what they have to wear? Serious ick-factor. I'm just interviewing for a normal clerical job. Filing and stuff. Have to pay the bills somehow. So why are you here? You're a little young to be working here. And Kagome-chan told me you were on vacation with your mother on Hokkaido."

"I'm not sure. Ayame-chan convinced Kino-san to get me here, but he doesn't seem in any hurry to let me go home. Mom's probably worried sick," he said.

"Why would she be worried about you?" she asked.

He bit his lip and looked sheepishly away.

"Souta-chan," she said in a scolding fashion.

"Ikindadidn'ttellherIwasleaving," he blurted out too quickly for her to understand.

"Say what?"

"I didn't tell her I was leaving," he mumbled.

"You just disappeared one night?!" she shrieked. "Higurashi Souta, are you so thoughtless that you wouldn't even tell your own mother good-bye before disappearing from your bed?"

He looked guiltily down at his feet.

"And I thought you were responsible," she said, walking towards him angrily. She poked him in the chest. "You're to go home right now, Souta-chan," another poke, "and tell Kagome-chan you're all right," she poked him again, "and call your mother and apologize." She gave him another poke for good measure. "Right now."

"I can't," he whispered. "Kino-san said he wanted to speak with me before I got to use a phone or anything, and he's been tied up in meetings and stuff ever since I got here."

Eri whipped out her cell phone and handed it to him. "Now," she repeated.

"You think I didn't think to bring my phone?" he asked, annoyed. "I've tried every room in this building and can't get any reception. It's like he doesn't _want_ people using their phones in the building."

Eri looked down at the phone she still held. He was right, there was no reception on the thing. She scowled at the screen. "Well then, you'll just have to leave without talking to Kino-sama."

"Already tried that. The bodyguard people seem to know who I am and keep stopping me from walking out. I tried going to Ayame-chan for help, he's her father after all, but she just grins and pats my head and says not to worry. Ayame's been acting really odd lately," he said, frowning a little. "Ever since that sparring practice with Mischa," he murmured softly to himself. Eri missed it.

"Kino Ayame? You know Kino Ayame? And are friends with her? Honestly, Souta-chan, you are completely naïve!"

"Stop treating me like a kid. I'm fifteen, not five," he said with a bit of a whine.

"All right, Souta-KUN," she said sarcastically. "You ought to know that Kino Ayame is probably the world's biggest manipulative bitch around, even with as few years as she's lived. She's got her father wrapped around her pinky finger. You live and die by her whims. You do NOT fucking make friends with her!" she hissed angrily at him.

"Kagome and Mischa never had a problem with it," he said, glaring right back.

"That's because the little bitch doesn't have the reputation in Tokyo she does in Kyoto. Why the hell do you think she moved here? She hates Tokyo, but she pissed off someone she shouldn't have back in Kyoto, and Daddy-dearest had to move her here," Eri explained. "And you go and make friends with her! She owns you now, Souta-KUN."

"She doesn't own me. Slavery was outlawed decades ago," he said.

"There are many different ways to own someone, brat, and you've given your trust to someone who will break it into more pieces than there are grains of sand on a beach. Good move there. I'll tell Kagome-chan I saw you, but I'm sure as hell not staying here. Fucking Ayame's in this building, I know it. And I don't want to be anywhere near her."

Eri stormed away, not caring about the job interview. The elder Kino she could take. The youngest Kino child, she could not. Something about the green-haired girl had rubbed her the wrong way their first meeting, and the relationship had declined exponentially from there.

Souta stared after the curly-haired girl's retreat and wondered what it was Ayame had done to piss her off so much. She had never been so vocal about a girl before.

Why wasn't Kino-san letting him call home anyway? Was he purposefully trying to scare his family into panic attacks?

**-----**

She stared silently up at the building. Its front was an unexceptional law firm, but she knew that deeper into the building, youkai were to be found. Youkai, she thought grimly, she had a bone or ten to pick with. And she wasn't planning on letting any of them leave this building again. At least not in one piece.

Amazing what a little force and silent glares would make people say. It hadn't taken her but three hours to discover the whereabouts of the snake and his many Underground centers. She had cleared out most of them, but this was the one she was after.

Do unto others as you would have done unto you, she thought darkly. Human proverbs were wonderful things. She would do to these monsters what had been done to her. She would rip them to shreds; mentally, emotionally, physically. This was not a four-year-old child who could not fight back. This was a mature youkai in full battle mode, with a bad temper to boot.

She gave a feral grin as she walked into the building, ignoring the receptionist's cries of "you can't go back there!" Let the carnage begin.

**-----**

"Yoko-sama, what are you so worked up over?" Chame said as she trotted along beside her brother and grandfather.

"All hell's broken loose in the youkai parts of Tokyo," he said to the two. "I need you two to help stop the major problems. There's some rogue youkai killing every one of Shinin's men and doesn't look to be stopping any time soon. I wouldn't mind losing the bastards, but this sort of thing isn't done anymore, especially not without one of the lords' permission. And I've already spoken with the other three. They've given no orders to clear out Shinin's shop."

"He's one of the youkai after Kagome," Chame said. "Would Musha do that?"

Both redheads snorted.

"That pup's more likely to wait for the attack to come to her than to take the offensive," Yoko said. "Most of her training was for defense."

"The wolf's not the only one Shinin has pissed off, kit, only the latest," Matsuro added. "What else is going on?"

It had obviously skipped her brother's mind that Mischa had gone youkai. Or else he didn't want their grandfather to learn the fact. The Lord of the Southern Lands would probably take it upon himself to kill the wolf hanyou upon discovering her current youkai status. Which would be completely understandable, barring the fact Kagome had said she knew a way to return the girl to normal.

"Kino's brat has picked up another toy. I wouldn't mind so much, but this one has power, and I sure as hell don't want the dragon-spawn with an ally who can use human magic. I've got enough trouble with her as it is. Why the hell did Sesshoumaru dump her on me?" Yoko added with a whine.

"You pissed him off," Matsuro said.

"That's still no way for him to treat his elders."

"Kino's one of your subjects, Yoko-sama," Chame told the green-eyed redhead. "That means his children are as well."

"I can't stand dragons," Yoko said. "All reptile youkai are a bother. I've got three crocodile youkai currently demanding the knowledge of the whereabouts of the Shikon no Tama or else they start eating up the Tokyo Underground. I'm going to need a lot of amnesia powder if that one actually happens."

"What's the cursed jewel doing in Tokyo anyway?" Chame asked.

"It's always been here," Yoko said. "Ever since the taijiya turned it over to Midoriko's bloodline, anyway. Though they guard it as well, just through less obvious means."

"How'd Shin-sama get it? I thought it went to the firstborn of the generation."

"I've never heard of a hanyou having magic powers," Matsuro drawled, "much less holy powers."

Chame stuck her tongue out at him. "Okay, so the firstborn human. Usually that's a given. The miko-sama taking a youkai for mate is very odd."

"That family has always been a bit off in the head," Yoko said, "as the inu hanyou can tell you."

"What's koinu got to do with them? I thought he just knew Musha."

Yoko snickered, but didn't explain his comment. "I would like your help in dealing with these problems. I don't know what's going on right now that's causing all the youkai in the city to suddenly feel like fighting, but they're beginning to make the human news. Even knowledge that the cursed jewel is in Tokyo wouldn't cause this sort of outbreak."

"What about Kino?" Matsuro asked, careful to not mention within Chame's hearing that he worked for the dragon.

Yoko understood the rest of the question- 'I work for him, and working for you will piss Kino off, especially if it concerns him.' "I don't want you to do anything about Kino. I know someone else who can handle that. I want Chame to go to Shinin's places and see if she can read what happened."

"And what am I supposed to do while you run around with my little sister?"

"Distract the human workers, of course," Yoko said with a smirk. "I'm too busy to escort her myself, so you have to take her. And most of the places have human work fronts. You two go to a store. You'll distracts the workers, and the kit sneaks into the back to see what she can't read from the bodies and leftover magical energy. I **have** to find out who's after that snake, and why. And getting a genko magician to look is the best chance I have right now."

"Do we get paid?" Chame asked.

"I have chocolate," he said thoughtfully.

"Works for me," she chirped.

"Doesn't work on me," Matsuro said, bopping Chame on the head.

"You get practice. After that miserable display with the hanyou I saw two nights ago, I'd say you need it, boy."

"What was he trying to do?" Chame asked.

"Talk her out of talking to the miko," Matsuro said.

"You'd do better to remember that magic doesn't act properly when it concerns a hanyou. Just like they can't use it, neither are they affected by it properly. I suggest not trying that again unless it's her human day," Yoko said to the younger redhead.

Chame giggled. "Kitsune suggestion fails? Older brother, you are a disgrace to our kind. Trying that on a hanyou. Honestly, were you trying to get a fouled spell or did you just forget she was half human?"

Matsuro shrugged. "Neither of us were thinking properly at the time."

Yoko handed Chame a list of addresses. "These are all the places the rogue's cleaned out already." He handed her a shorter list of addresses. "He hasn't reached these yet, but no doubt they'll be empty by the end of the day as well. Check one or two of the emptied ones first, to see if you can't pick anything up, then go to these places and see if you can't catch him in the act."

"You make it sound so simple," the younger kitsune said in unison.

"And should you happen across the miko, tell her I'd like to see her again. It concerns her brother, so do try and get her to me. I have other work to do now." He disappeared in a swirl of red bubbles.

"Show off," Chame muttered.

"You're just upset you haven't learned that spell yet," Matsuro said.

"Just like you're jealous you're still hundreds of years too young to be able to use that kind of gold magic," Chame replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Do you get the feeling that we're going to know whoever's cleaning out Shinin's part of the Underground?"

"Not really. Maybe you should finish your lunch. Your brain is obviously trying to work again without the help of your pants, and doesn't have the energy to. You should exercise it more."

Matsuro bopped the girl on the head again.

Chame knew her words had merely been foolish hope. Musha had a bad past with the serpent youkai and his men, and if Kage was as sane as Kagome had said, she would no longer have the discretion to refrain from slaughtering the youkai behind most of the tragedies of her childhood.

But Matsuro didn't need to know that.

**-----**

Eri read the note on the front door with bemused wonder.

'_To whichever of you guys shows up looking for me, Inu-Yasha and I have gone out to look for Souta. We'll be back later tonight. _

_Mischa- You're in big trouble when you get back. Your tags are on the counter. Fixed. _

_Souta- I'm going to kill you for making Momma and me worry about you if it ends up with you just wanting to get to soccer practice. _

_Mat- Don't pick the lock again. That's what windows are for. _

_Chame- Keep your brother from going in through the window. Distract him with the lingerie catalogue underneath the welcome mat. _

_Eri- The mall was a blast, but that hideous black pea coat you tricked me into buying has disappeared. I'm not sorry at all._

_- Kagome_

_P.S.- Anybody else reading this, I'm out for the day. Call my cell. If you don't have the number, too bad for you. I've got more important things to worry about than door-to-door salesmen looking to make a profit. _

_P.P.S, - The Shrine is closed on Sundays. Please come back tomorrow if you want a tour or to buy something.'_

It was hilarious. The Higurashi's certainly didn't get a lot of visitors beyond people they knew, and Kagome had made a point of addressing everyone she thought might stop by, though Eri was surprised to recognize only half the addressees.

Eri grinned at the part of the note meant for her. She hadn't tricked Kagome into buying the coat. It was just a bet with all the odds stacked in Eri's favor.

Okay, maybe she had tricked Kagome into getting it. But hey, Kagome didn't have it anymore to worry about, did she? It worked out.

Eri wondered if Inu-Yasha was the good-looking blonde from her first visit. The redhead looked to be a bit too playboy-like for Kagome's tastes. Though she didn't take Kagome for being one to like grumpy men either. Though seeing how well she handled her cousin, maybe she should have.

But Kagome wasn't here to talk to about Souta being with Kino-san and that little monster he called his daughter. She pulled out her cell.

Punching in Kagome's number, the phone suddenly beeped and turned off. The battery had died. Well that was just fantastic. Life never went the way you wanted it to.

Sighing, she put the phone back in her purse and pulled out a pen and old receipt and scribbled on the empty back-

'_Kagome-chan! I was at a job interview at the Takehara Building today and you'll never guess who I saw! Mischa's brat! -Eri'_

Hopefully Kagome would understand the message. She really didn't have a lot of room on the receipt for an address. Not to mention the entire 'Souta's probably being held captive' thing definitely wouldn't fit. Kagome would just have to beat the information out of him after she rescued the naïve boy.

Why would the two hold the boy anyway? Souta certainly didn't have anything of interest- besides an increased hotness factor that Eri was trying to deny- nor did he have any money. Maybe they were holding him hostage for something else? But his family was pretty normal.

…Besides the fact Kagome sometimes glowed pink when she got angry, or Mischa wouldn't break a sweat when she beat the crap out of the entire clientele at a popular bar for too many cracks about her needing breast implants or else she was a really bad cross-dresser. But _otherwise_, a pretty normal family.

Maybe they wanted a free bodyguard? Or a night-light? She giggled. Maybe that was downplaying the whole thing a little too much.

She pulled the tack out of the door and added her note on top of Kagome's. Hopefully Kagome would see it before people from Kino-san's place showed up to talk with her. She definitely didn't want them coming after her for telling Kagome where Souta was. Though if they did come and see the note, they shouldn't be able to understand it. She hadn't mentioned Kino Hachiro- even though everyone knew he owned the Takehara- and she hadn't put down Souta's name.

Was it just her, or had Tokyo gotten a lot weirder in the two years she had been away?


	13. Twelve: Paint The Town Red

**Chapter Twelve: Paint The Town Red**

"_The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving."_

- Ulysses S. Grant

**-- Early afternoon, May 20, Tokyo, Japan --**

Chame walked around the room, studying the variation between magic and physical attacks. She could hear Matsuro flirting with the young woman guarding the entrance to the back. She had been too tied up in seductive amethyst eyes to notice a small girl with a too-long black braid sneak past her.

She wasn't sure what to make of the slaughter. The attacker had hidden his scent well; she couldn't even pick up that someone beyond the sixteen dead youkai had been in the room. Of course, the fact the entire room was covered with their blood helped to hide anyone else's scent as well.

With her eyes, she could see that he had slammed the door open and gotten the four playing cards before they had a chance to stand. She couldn't tell what exactly was the weapon- an energy blade judging by the cauterized wounds- but hell if she knew what the attacker had used. Sword, spear, axe. They all were the same to her. She didn't practice any of the martial arts, and couldn't tell one form of damage from another.

Some had tried to attack, while the rest had tried to flee, judging by the wounds on their backs and legs as the man had toyed with them, drawing out their agony. Chame shuddered. Whoever he was, he had been beyond mere anger. Here were signs of a youkai enraged. Bloodlust was nothing compared to the horrible patterns of spilled blood that covered every inch of the rather large room. And none of it had been the attacker's.

On the mystical level, it was even more confusing. The weapon had definitely been an energy blade, but the man had had enough control over his powers to clean up all traces of his energy. She couldn't even read the color; it had been mixed up so well with the other youkai's magic. Blue, red, silver, green, and various other colors she didn't feel like looking at.

He had purposefully mixed them up, she noted. None of the bodies had only one energy type on them, and she wasn't practiced enough to unravel all the different magical energies and place them with the proper former owner.

She could try. Though she wasn't sure if all the chocolate in the world was worth the headache she would get, not to mention the humility she'd go through puking once the fact kicked in that she was the sole thing in the room not drenched in blood.

She let the world of her eyes gratefully fade away and looked only at the mystical energies surrounding her. The receptionist's giggles faded entirely from her ears as everything but her Sight was shut off.

Matsuro, she noted in one corner of her mind, was a brilliant flame of golden energy streaked with green.

The room she was now in was a hypnotic swirl of colors. Tentatively, she reached out a tendril of her own dark green magic. Blue energy snapped back at her as she set off a spell. Ignoring the growing pain in her head, she summoned her magic to return the attack, and blue energy twirled off from the rest of the colors and settled in a corner of the room where she knew a body lay.

She didn't look forward to doing that fifteen more times, especially if they kept increasing the pressure on her head. Giving a soft sigh, she got back to work.

--**Late Afternoon**--

"Have you ever turned into a demon, Inu-Yasha?" Kagome asked as she checked street signs for the one they were looking for.

"If I did, do you think I'd remember it?" he shot back.

"Look, Inu-Yasha, it's a simple question. I just want to know if I have to worry about you going demon as well as Mischa."

"I've got more control of my blood than her," he said.

She didn't quite believe that reasoning. Mischa was calm and collected, usually, and both times she had lost herself, she had been seriously near death- or so she assumed from the way Mischa's clothes had been torn up and bloodied the day before. Though her demon blood had obviously gone into serious 'heal thyself' mode by the time she and Inu-Yasha had gotten there. So control of youkai blood probably meant nothing. It just went to say she should keep Inu-Yasha from getting hurt in any of the fights he might get into.

"Right," she said. "So you're not going to transform into a youkai?"

"No. I've gotten over that."

Gotten over what? "Huh?"

"Never mind. Is that it?" he asked, pointing over her shoulder at a sign.

"Which one?"

"The Takehara building," he said. "Kino Hachiro's usual place of business. He's like Sears, only with better commercials."

Was he trying to make a joke? It wasn't very funny, she thought.

"Why are we doing this again?" she asked.

"Because all the asking around has gotten us nothing, so going in the front door and asking about the boy point-blank will be so unexpected they'll give themselves away in the first second."

She had to be stupid to agree to do this. But Souta had disappeared, and his friendship with Kino Ayame was their best lead.

Mischa could handle herself, and there were others within the city able to keep her at bay. Souta only had her looking out for him. And hell if she was going to let someone kidnap him because they wanted to use him as a bargaining chip. And they didn't even have the decency to leave a ransom note or something.

"Do you honestly think this is going to work?"

"Less of a chance than a snowball in hell," he said with a sharp-toothed grin. "But it tells Kino we're on to him and he'll try and move the kid somewhere else. And if you continue to insist on having those perverts tag along, they make great stalkers. How do you think they found you?"

"Lucky guess?" She hadn't thought about how the kitsune had shown up. The reason Chame gave was good, but Matsuro continued to be dodgy as to why he was helping to find out why the two youkai were after her.

He scoffed as he entered the building. "The little brat may have told you the truth, but a grown kitsune would rather cut off his tails than tell the whole truth. They can't ever tell a story without embellishing, or adding things in that never happened. Betcha he tells his granddad that Chame's the one who caused all the messes they've gotten into."

Kagome didn't reply as a sharply dressed woman walked up to the two. "Are you Kurosawa Eri?" The woman asked.

She didn't give Kagome a chance to even shake her head no. "You're four hours late, Kurosawa-san. Kino-sama has already filled the position. I suggest if you really want a job, you show up for the interview on time." And she rather forcefully escorted the two out the building. Both were too startled by her actions to protest the odd treatment.

"The hell?" The two said at the same time, turning to stare at the now locked-down building.

"Why did she think I was Eri-chan? What did she mean by being late? What interview?"

Inu-Yasha remembered the strange name on the dog tags. Kurosawa. Had she meant this Eri person? And what had she meant by _Kagemusha_? Did she mean the girl was some kind of shadow warrior, or did she mean something else entirely? Why couldn't females ever come out and say what they meant?

Kagome studied the building, her eyes narrowed in concentration.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She shook her head. "If Souta's in there," she said at last, "they're hiding his aura. I'm just seeing the normal to-and-fro of people who work there."

"Only an idiot wouldn't hide a captive's aura when they know the girl looking for them is a miko. And Kino ain't an idiot."

"So what do we do now?"

"I'm hungry. I say we go to that place you work at and get some ramen. They make great ramen. Even better than the place back in Murikami I always go to."

Go to work, as a customer? With Inu-Yasha? She'd never hear the end of it from Rin. Rin would go on and on about stealing her cousin's toy and if Kagome would mind if Rin stole him from her. Best to nip that idea now before Inu-Yasha got thinking too much about the food there.

"Ai-san is working today," she said.

"Who?"

"That girl who stared at you the entire time you were there. The one who likes blondes."

He muttered a curse. He didn't like being stared at. He always got the creepy feeling someone was looking past the illusion placed on him by the beaded necklace and was two seconds from screaming.

"We could go eat somewhere else," she said. "There's a ramen stand near the hospital Mischa works on. I eat there when I stop by to talk with the doctors."

"Do they make good ramen?"

Did it really matter? It was just ramen, for heaven's sake. "Yeah."

"Then let's go." And he grabbed her by the arm and started pulling her down the street. She guessed he really liked ramen.

**-- May 20, a farm in the Niigata prefecture, Japan --**

Fukii decided her adopted aunt- as the human was by no ways related by blood to **her**, a well-born youkai- was very worried about something. Even after the decades the woman had spent among demons, she still couldn't hide her scent, and her emotions were written in them plain as day.

But she didn't know what the woman was so worried about. Subtle- and unsubtle- questions had gone unanswered, and her grandfather wasn't answering any either. At least someone knew why the miko was so upset. But it had Kouga just as worried.

Was it because of the increased number of visitors to the farm recently? They were a rowdy bunch, true, but there had been little damage to the property, besides a few of her younger relatives getting themselves beaten up for daring to ask why they were here. Completely ordinary.

Though it was odd so many youkai who knew each other were here all at the same time. Usually their visitors were relative strangers to one another, even if they knew most of the wolf pack members.

Her uncle Shinji was currently nursing a missing hand after a spat with one of the more vicious bear youkai. The bear youkai hadn't fared any better- the miko had refused to tend his wounds and left him for his fellows to care for. Why he had dared to expect a miko to heal someone who had just picked a fight with her mate was beyond her.

It might just have been an excuse to see how much of a backbone the human had. Well, they had obviously learned that if they wanted a miko to tend to them, they wouldn't go out of their ways to get into fights.

Come to think of it, the bear had been _goading_ Shinji into the fight. Rude remarks about humans, half-breeds, black wolves, his heritage. He had brought up every sore point on the black wolf's mind, and seemed to get very angry when her aunt kept her mate from leaping at the youkai. Which was when he pulled out the 'dog on a leash' comment. No wolf could ignore that insult- that he was somebody's **pet**. Even Mikomi couldn't hold him back on that one.

It hadn't helped that she looked just as angry as Shinji with some of the comments the bear youkai had made.

Life on the farm was never without its violence, she thought with a grin. Too bad the lords had ordered everyone to cut back on the deaths. The bear would have been killed in old days for that comment. As it was, he wouldn't be walking for a couple of months, if he didn't die from those wounds first.

Fukii wondered when she would grow famous enough to gain enemies. The adults had all the fun.

So what had the pack's elders so nervous?

She looked up from her musings to watch some of the younger pups scramble away from a tiger youkai shouting something about revenge. What revenge?

She stood up, intent on making him leave the children alone. Never mind that she was still less than two centuries old.

_\\ 'What do you think you are doing?' \\_ She asked, placing herself between the tiger and the three dark-haired brown wolves. _\\ 'What have these pups done to you to make you seek revenge?' \\_

He stopped barely a foot away from her, and looked down from his lofty seven feet to her dainty five. _\\ 'You are of Kouga's tribe,' \\_ he said, glaring. _\\ 'He killed my brother. I am returning the favor.' \\_

With that as his only warning, claws flashed out.

Fukii leapt nimbly to the side. When had Kouga killed a tiger youkai? She continued to dodge his furious attacks as she ran through the list of people Kouga had had to kill recently.

Realization dawned on her. Mokuto, from earlier in the week, who had wanted to kill Mikomi for being a human, and a miko, and lots of other reasons. None of which were rational. Maybe this one would be more rational than his brother.

She faked a roundhouse punch, which he ducked under, and she brought a knee up into his groin. He doubled over in pain.

_\\ 'You will refrain from attacking those of the North,' \\_ she said with as much authority as a child looking to be thirteen could. _\\ 'Seeking revenge upon those in charge is stupid and will get you killed.' \\_

She brought her elbow down onto the back of his head. He crumpled to the ground, muttering a curse about insolent puppies.

_\\ 'Cease this idiocy, and perhaps Kouga-sama will let you live.' \\_

His reply was a snarl as he leapt up from the ground, jumping at her. She misjudged his speed and fell backwards, the youkai's claws coming for her throat.

She heard the hiss of a katana cutting through the air, and the hand fell uselessly to the ground. Fukii kicked him off her, and made a moue of disgust as his blood splattered everywhere as the katana sliced the tiger diagonally in half.

Angry cobalt eyes looked down upon his young granddaughter. "Were it not for the fact your cousins came to me," Kouga said, "you would be dead."

She stood up, futilely trying to wipe blood off her face. "I was handling it."

He sheathed the katana. "Kill or be killed, Ki. You can't afford to be noble if your opponent won't be."

"It works for you," she said stubbornly.

"I'm more powerful than you. You look like an easy target, and being beaten by you would cause them to lose face."

She couldn't argue with her grandfather. He was usually right. "He said he wanted revenge for his brother."

"Mokuto was an only child," he said, placing a hand on her shoulder and leading her back towards the house.

"They didn't smell at all alike," she agreed. "So why would he claim to be his brother?"

"An excuse to attack my family, of course. As the miko said, they are testing us."

"For what?"

"For how long it would take to destroy the farm," he said calmly.

Fukii was too shocked to say anything before he tossed her into the river to wash the blood off.

"You'd best get back to training, Ki. They're coming more frequently, and everyone will be needed when the true attack finally comes."

She sat in the river, red hair plastered to her face, clothes sticking uncomfortably tight to her, and spat water out of her mouth. Kouga was already walking away, topknot bobbing with each step.

"But who are they?" she whined.

There was no answer.

**-- Evening, May 20, Tokyo, Japan --**

The woman was beyond irritating, Matsuro thought. He silently willed a customer to come in and distract her so that he could run very far away.

Gods, but he couldn't stand women that babbled.

Unless they were very attractive, of course. Though there was some babble he could put up with from slightly less attractive women. Such as them discussing how handsome he was.

But this woman fell in a rather low category of attractive, her conversation topics were boring, and what the hell was taking the kit so long back there anyway?

He could feel her using her magic. He wasn't sure what she was doing- as she had pointed out, he was the muscle to her magic. Though he had control of basic spells, understanding what it was he was seeing flickers of was beyond him. Even Yoko would be hard pressed to understand what the black kitsune did so naturally.

The entrance jingled, and he looked over, his relief barely evident in his eyes, as a young man came in to speak with the woman about something or other. He wasn't quite sure what this place sold.

Taking the interruption as a cue to leave, he stepped away from the desk, gold energy swirling around him as he wove a suggestion of 'I'm not here' around himself. Basic magic any kitsune could do, really.

So long as it wasn't used on a hanyou, he thought with disgust. Had his grandfather not interrupted the suggestion he was beginning to weave on the irate wolf-girl, it likely would have blown up in his face as her thoughts countered what he was trying to make her understand.

Though the fact he couldn't use that magic on her made it more fun trying to talk her into doing something. Rather like not being able to cheat and having to do things the hard way. Though he didn't want to have to do that all the time- he had better things to do than spend his entire time sweet-talking people into letting him pass without notice.

Walking quietly around the bookcase to the trapdoor Chame had disappeared through, he hopped down. It was a small room, probably used as a checkpoint. The door leading into the actual part of the safe house had been smashed in with a well-placed kick and he stepped gingerly through its broken remains.

Chame stood in the center of the room, glowing a brilliant green color as magical energy swirled about her and the room. Her eyes were shut as concentrated on moving the energies around.

The smell of blood was overwhelming. Chame had to have turned off her senses to have stood back here so long.

The bodies looked to have been torn up by a pole arm of some kind- naginata, he guessed. The scuffmarks on the ground from the man's feet were the wrong distance for a halberd or spear. He faintly remembered the miko saying something about the wolf hanyou using a weapon of a similar kind the two times she had gone rogue.

Was it possible the hanyou was the cause of this carnage?

Chame's eyes opened. He noted they were no longer a brilliant aquamarine, instead a faded green as she tried to keep enough energy to remain standing.

"Are you well?" he said, gently picking her up to keep her from falling.

"Yes. Just tired." She wrapped small arms around his neck, burying her nose in his hair to keep from smelling the blood the room had been drenched in. He heard her muffled voice say, "It's as if no one else was here. All the energies are accounted for, there's no scent, no _nothing_. Even a ghost would have left a sign of something. It's like one of these youkai used their own energy to kill the rest, then kill himself."

"They're not placed properly for that," Matsuro told her as he walked back to the trapdoor. "Someone came in and killed them."

"Then either the attacker is magically dead or he's got more control of their power than Yoko-sama," she said tiredly.

And considering that it was an energy blade, he thought, they definitely weren't magically dead. "Our grandfather is perhaps not the best example for that statement, kit," he said.

Neither customer nor receptionist noted the tall redhead disappearing out the front door with the young girl in his arms.

She pulled her head back to grin up at him. "Yeah, he's powerful, but since when could a kitsune not show off?"

"We're looking for someone who is used to being in the shadows."

The shadows. Could it be?

Chame had a similar thought. "Kage," she whispered. "I don't understand how magic works with a hanyou in her other forms. Musha can't do magic any more than Shin-sama could fly. But her human day could be different."

"The Meirin family is well-known for its magicians," he agreed, "but she's youkai now, not human."

"What if she has both youkai and human magic? What if they cancel each other out when she's in her hanyou form, but when she takes one form or the other, she can tap into the power?"

"A very disturbing thought. But no one knows much about them. We would do better to talk to the mutt or someone who's known a hanyou for a long time. Or else we could be looking for someone entirely different."

"Do you suppose the miko is having any luck finding her brother?" Her voice was fading, he noticed. The poor kit had really tired herself out, trying to discover anything from the remains of the youkai.

"Hopefully," he said. "I'd rather not think of anyone of that family under the control of Shinin or Kino."

"Why's that?" Chame mumbled, almost asleep.

He didn't bother to answer, as she was asleep by the time he thought up a suitable lie.

Chame didn't know they were the scions of Midoriko. He wasn't supposed to either, but Kino had somehow found out and passed the information along to him to convince him of the seriousness of the job.

What gods had he pissed off in a prior life to get him tangled up in this mess?

**-----**

"What is the meaning of this?" a cool, angry voice said as he pointed to a television monitor.

It was a recording of earlier in the day, when they were still open for business. Two twenty-something people, one male and one female, stood dumbfounded as one of the employees babbled soundlessly at them. The same employee now trying to explain to her boss why she had booted the two out of the building without even bothering to learn if they were who she thought they were. Which, she was fast discovering, they weren't.

"They showed up just before closing time, and I figured they didn't need anything," the woman stammered out. Some people got bosses who blew hot, she got one who blew cold. And cold anger was much worse than hot anger.

"And who did they say they were? And what they were here for?"

"I just assumed she was Kurosawa-san, since she never showed up. They didn't actually say anything," she said, taking a few steps back from her boss.

"That, you little idiot, is not Kurosawa, it's Higurashi! The boy's older sister. Were it not for your sheer dumb luck in booting the two out, they would have come in and found him," he said.

"So, that's good?" she asked timidly.

He ran a hand through his graying green hair. "Yes. And no. I need the girl too. It's beginning to look like the boy isn't the right one. How the hell would she know to come here to find her brother anyway? Who's that with her? Zoom in on his face," he ordered the technician cringing at the controls.

A few clicks, and a clear picture of Takara Inu-Yasha, in human disguise, could be seen. His eyes looked confused as he listened to something that didn't record on the visual-only security camera.

"He's cute," the woman murmured.

Both men leveled annoyed gazes on her.

"I'm just saying," she said defensively.

The technician rolled his eyes, while the other returned his gaze to the young man in the picture.

"I've seen him somewhere before," he murmured.

"Wish I had," the woman said.

"Shut up already. You're in trouble, don't make it any worse," the technician said.

She gave a small humph of annoyance and crossed her arms to study the picture.

"He looks a bit like Takara Sesshoumaru," she said, recalling one of the company's most prominent competitors. "Only not as refined. Younger, too. Maybe they're related."

"Your study of men has a use at last," the older man said. "I should have seen it immediately. Takara is always showing up at the most inopportune moments. Why should his brother be no different? I hadn't counted on this. Why didn't her shadow tell me of this?"

"Um, sir, you're still pissed at him," the woman said. "You refuse his calls and haven't made any to him. How would he tell you about anything?"

"How do you know about that?" he asked, annoyed that the woman knew about the kitsune following the shrine's inhabitants.

"Have you **seen** him? Yum. And when he disappeared, again," she said with some annoyance, "I asked around. Only to find he got reassigned to do some 'I'm a cool private eye' thing, and is undercover, or something. Talk about the lack of eye candy in the work place. I don't have any luck."

"Hey, what about me?"

"You're not eye-catching, honey. Go find the girl next door to moon over you. I'll take mine with sex appeal, please," she said to the technician making a mock-hurt face.

"Flirt later, you two," the older man said. "You're still on the clock."

"Yes sir," the two said.

"I'll just go back to my files, then." The woman disappeared out of the room.

"Clueless as always," the technician said, shaking his head. "But she's a natural at picking up on youkai very well. She's never taken any interest in a human, even though she can't consciously tell the difference."

"She's an untrained sensitive, what did you expect?"

The technician shrugged. Sensitives, as humans with magical energy were often called, had a kind of sixth sense when it came to demons, even if they didn't have a magic that dealt with youkai. It was one reason why the Higurashi boy had been so easy to talk into the building- Kino Ayame was a dragon youkai and subtly forcing the boy into wanting to meet with Kino-sama was a simple matter of releasing some of her hold on her youki so that his untrained power picked up on it and grew curious as to why there was a demon nearby.

"Hell if I know. You want me to look into him?"

"Immediately." And the man swept out of the room.

The technician shrugged again. Damned if that man wasn't the scariest youkai he had come across. Barring his partner and the elder Takara brother. But Takara tended to stick to Kyoto, and the snake his boss had for a partner stuck to his own seedy places of business.

Though his boss's daughter was pretty creepy too. He pitied the poor boy she had brought her father's attention to. By the time the three were done with him, there wouldn't be anything left of him to send home in a full box of sardines, much less a coffin.

Oh well, he thought indifferently. So long as it wasn't him, who cared?

**-----**

"That's absolutely disgusting," Kagome told the hanyou who currently had his face buried in his twelfth bowl of ramen, speedily gulping noodles down as chopsticks traveled the miniscule distance between mouth and container.

He looked up from the food, and even as he continued to eat, his eyes said, 'Who cares? I'm hungry.'

All that practice learning how to mind read with Mischa was really paying off with the rest of the people that her cousin had somehow managed to drag into Kagome's life. Too bad she couldn't really mind read and figure out why they were here.

Inu-Yasha had said he was paying off a debt, or something like that.

("_Fucking Akira."_)

He said that a lot, especially when he thought one of the two girls had done something stupid. But the weird thing was, she remembered him saying it long before she had met him last Sunday. But she didn't really remember seeing him. Just those words, and an annoyed voice lecturing her about something.

Inu-Yasha had also said that the kitsune hadn't told the complete truth behind why they had come to her.

Chame had come to Mischa to ask for help in finding Matsuro. Less than an hour later, the trio had come across the older kitsune in a McDonald's that Chame had suggested to them. Chame had suggested it because she had grown accustomed to American food, she had explained. But was it coincidence that Matsuro would be at the same restaurant the same time they came in? It was doubtful.

She reminded herself that kitsune liked to play games. Had Chame known her brother would be there? Why insist upon bringing her and Mischa along?

Why did the kitsune continue to hang around? Were they interested in Kagome, or the people after her?

How had Matsuro known who she was when he first appeared in the library? Inu-Yasha had said a kitsune would rather cut off a tail than to explain everything. Mat hadn't explained that one at all. Maybe he thought she hadn't noticed- which she hadn't at first.

Mischa had mentioned that he said he was bored, and thought messing with their heads would be a good way to pass the time. Kagome wasn't quite sure if she believed Mischa on that one, and definitely didn't believe Matsuro, if he had indeed said it.

Mischa had been assigned to watch out for her human cousin by the youkai lords. Who were these lords they constantly spoke of? Why would they care what happened to her? Was it because they thought she was a guardian?

And what the hell was she supposed to be guarding anyway? Why didn't they just come by and say, 'Salutations, I'm a lord of something-youkai-that-you've-never-heard-of, and you're guarding the Mystical Green Hair Bow of Perfection'? Not that anybody would say that, but it made as much sense as the rest of the world did.

Why weren't things ever normal? That's all she wanted- go to med school, learn to stitch people up, save lives, find attractive, intelligent guy to marry and have two-and-a-half kids, a three-bedroom house, and two cars.

Okay, maybe that was asking a bit much, but still, what had she ever done to deserve people trying to kidnap her or kill her or suck her magic out of her to keep their generators running?

"You're spacing out," Inu-Yasha said as he finished off the bowl.

Her eyes turned from the window she had been staring out of back to Inu-Yasha.

"Well it's not like I want to watch you eat," she said. "And you seem to be too busy to hold a conversation, so what I am supposed to do?"

He shrugged. "It's just weird smelling all that stuff on you, and watching your face change, and you not say a word as to why you're so pissed off."

"Smell stuff on me?" He had absolutely no tact, the jerk! At least Mischa never brought up the fact she thought Kagome needed a bath because she was having trouble breathing because of the perfume Kagome had picked up from her co-workers.

"Yeah. You know, emotions. Only strong ones, but you seem to feel everything strongly." He rolled his eyes. "Gods, humans are so weird."

"Hey, you're half human too," she hissed quietly, trying not to let other customers overhear their odd conversation.

"Yeah, but doesn't mean I get all the weird emotions you get. Like shopping," he said. "Who has joy over shopping? But every time I go into a store, I'm overloaded by sound of girls giggling over shiny stupid expensive things they want their boyfriends to buy them. Who cares?"

"Shopping is very relaxing," she said. "You hang out with your friends and discuss tons of stuff you shouldn't at work." Not that that ever stopped Rin.

"Who thought up that load of shit?" he asked.

She glared at him. "It's true."

"It's an excuse to blow your money on too-expensive stuff you don't need and will never use. It's like an addiction or something."

"I can't believe I'm hearing this!" she said, thumping one hand on the table. "Look, Inu-Yasha, you may not like shopping, but there are those of us who like to wear normal clothes! Look at yourself!"

He looked down at the red shirt he was wearing and back up at her. "What are you talking about?"

"How boring can you get? Boring old t-shirt and blue jeans. What are you, some grungy American high school kid? You need to get clothes for someone your age."

"My age?" he repeated. "Look, girl, maybe you're forgetting I'm old enough to be your great-great-grandfather, and I definitely ain't running around in old men's clothes. They itch."

She pinched her nose. Was he being ignorant on purpose?

"Besides, I don't want to attract attention. Makes the others forget I exist, then I scare the hell out of them when I show back up. And that means less time spent questioning them, since I've already caught them off-guard."

"Interrogating?" Wait, weren't they talking about shopping?

"Youkai version of your girl gossip. Except useful."

Jerk. No wonder why Mischa had never talked about the people she knew back on the farm, if they were all like him. She glared, having a weird urge to say 'osuwari.' Which was silly, since he wasn't literally a dog- just half inu youkai; so why would she order him to sit? Plus he was already sitting.

He glared right back, then sneezed explosively.

"Told you that koinu was stupid," a high-pitched voice said from somewhat behind Inu-Yasha. Both jumped at the noise.

"Don't do that!" Kagome said, looking over his shoulder to see Matsuro. She guessed Chame was too short to see.

"Quit it with that fucking suggestion!" Inu-Yasha said. "How many times do I have to tell you it fucking gives me a headache?"

"It does?" Matsuro asked, his toothy grin unapologetic for whatever it was Inu-Yasha was mad about.

Chame hopped up onto the chair between Kagome and Inu-Yasha. "Bad reactions, older brother, remember?"

"Why do you keep assuming I understand what you're talking about?" Kagome said.

Matsuro grinned. "Why Kagome-sama, I was under the impression you didn't want to understand anything I said. Have you changed your mind? Can I change your mind on another subject, concerning sleeping arrangements?"

"Shut up!" Miko and hanyou yelled at the redhead.

"Suggestion," Chame said to Kagome, as if nothing were out of the ordinary, "is a minor magic that kitsune have. It's basically mind control. If we don't want to be seen, the magic convinces other people around us that they don't see us. The more against what someone usually does, the more power you need to put into it."

"And the headaches?"

Inu-Yasha made an irritated noise in the back of his throat.

"As long as you've known your cousin," Matsuro said, "haven't you noticed how magic reacts oddly around her?"

Such as her turning human from too much purification magic. Or not dying when a spear imbued with killing magic power ran right through her. Being half and half probably made magic meant for people wholly human or wholly youkai not react properly with her.

"I think I understand," Kagome said.

"So about those sleeping arrangements?" He said, sitting across from Chame to grin slyly at Kagome.

"You're getting the welcome mat if you keep this up, Mat-kun," Kagome said, slightly humored, slightly irritated.

"So long as there's someone to keep me company, I have no problems."

"No," the other three said.

He sighed, not put out at all. "Would you mind looking after the kit for me tomorrow? There's something I need to do, and I'd rather not listen to offers to buy my sister while there."

Chame gagged.

"Just where are you going?" Kagome asked, aghast.

"Moron," Inu-Yasha muttered. "How's going there going to help any?"

"Something my grandfather asked about. I figured they might have some information."

"You don't want to know where he's going, Shin-sama," Chame said quietly to Kagome. "It won't give you nightmares that way."

"I've got no problem watching her if you feel going there is completely necessary," Kagome said. Buying children? Definitely better to keep the young kitsune far away from whatever it was.

Matsuro grinned. "I am in your debt, Kagome-sama. I know a wonderful way to repay you."

"I'd rather not hear it, Mat-kun," she said before he could go into detail.

"I'd like to," Chame said mischievously.

"Too bad for you. Fox, don't even think about it," Inu-Yasha ordered the older youkai.

"But I've already thought it."

"Why am I the youngest person here and yet still the most mature?"

"Because humans are weird."

"To put it tactfully."

"So what are the plans for tomorrow?" Kagome said, not wanting the kitsune to finish their tag team of insulting her kind.

"I'm heading into one of the most infamous Tokyo youkai dens of iniquity. You're keeping the kit so I don't accidentally sell her off for information."

"I need to find someone for Yoko-sama. Shin-sama, I had a thought. As a miko, you do magic through emotions, right?"

"Some, yes."

"Can you go to a place and feel emotion?"

"Kit, you can't possibly-"

"It's the only way to tell for sure, and she's the only one who can do it."

"Quit fucking evading the subject. Where do you want to take her and why?"

"Someone has been killing youkai without leaving any trace for a youkai to pick up on. As a human, Shin-sama uses a different type of energy to work her magic. I think whoever it is killing these people will show up when she tries to sense for their energy."

Kagome thought it over. "Who's being killed?"

Matsuro and Chame exchanged looks. "Youkai working for Shinin Dokuhebi."

"Let them die," Inu-Yasha said. "Less people for her to worry about."

"It's the lords' prerogative to punish them. We can't have everyone with a grudge going after powerful youkai. That causes chaos," Matsuro said.

"And it's the lords who need to stop them," Inu-Yasha shot right back.

"Koinu no baka, what do you think we're doing?"

Matsuro's gaze turned to Inu-Yasha. "It's called designating responsibility. You might want to brush up on your ideas of honor, if you think we'll refuse a lord's request for aid."

"Feh."

"So a lord has asked you to look into who's killing these youkai, but you can't find out anything, and now you're asking me too as well? I've got to find Souta, I don't have time to go on random pursuits."

"It's not random. Kino has the boy, Shinin is currently Kino's partner, and undoubtedly Shinin will go to Kino for help, thus leading the killer in that direction, and us as well," Matsuro explained.

"Please, Shin-sama. You don't really understand how much damage this single youkai has caused to the Underground's affairs through his actions. The Southern Lord will be straightening this up for years. You can't just take out fifty youkai in a single day without causing serious change in the pecking order."

"Fifty? In a single day? Has another fucking dragon gotten pissed?"

"No, whoever it is isn't an elementalist. He was sticking to an energy blade."

Now that Kagome could understand. Most youkai did magic through use of one the elements- controlling fire, earth, wind, ice, sound, and the like. A non-elementalist was either like Chame, and practiced true magic, or had some other form of magic to draw upon- the energy blade in this case. A weapon made solely of energy, the blade took whatever form the wielder wished of it. Kagome could summon one herself, though it sucked up a great deal more energy than a youkai's did. Her battle magic worked best _**on**_ a weapon, and not _**as**_ a weapon.

Whoever it was that Chame wished her to help find, it was her duty as a miko to stop him. Youkai had a right to life just as much as humans did.

"I'll do it," she said, re-entering the conversation.

"You'll what?" Inu-Yasha yelled.

"As much as it pains me to say it, my responsibility is to my duty as a miko first, my family second. A killer must be stopped, and if you need my help, you have it," she told Chame.

"Thank you, Shin-sama," the kitsune said quietly, looking down at the table. Kagome knew something was off with the cheery kit, but there were more important things to worry about.

"Now that everything's settled, I'll be off," Matsuro said, standing.

"Where are you going?" Kagome asked.

"Who cares? Let him fucking go. He's obviously useless, if he's been helping the genko all day and she still needs help."

"The sooner I find this out, the sooner I can get back to your lovely company, Kagome-sama."

Kagome grinned. "I hope it takes you a month," she said sweetly.

"You wound me. Is my company so distasteful?"

"Yes," Inu-Yasha said snidely. "Get lost already."


	14. Thirteen: An Unexpected Rescue

Author's Note: It struck me while writing this that my characters don't like telling the truth. Which must leave you, the reader, wondering what is the truth and what someone made up. So to clear it up some, anything any youkai says needs to be taken with a grain of salt. More like a pound. Kagome can be trusted to be honest, though I'm sure she tells little white lies like everyone else. Thoughts will always be the truth as **that character** knows it- though it can't be guaranteed that's what really happened. I will be only too happy to answer any questions you have concerning anything going on.

**Chapter Thirteen: An Unexpected Rescue**

"_The word strategy means outsmarting your enemy, and recognizing all the tricks he'll use to deceive you." He tapped his forehead. "Wars are won here, not out there in the trenches."_

-David Eddings, The Redemption of Althalus

**-- Late Morning, May 21, Tokyo, Japan --**

"What the fuck happened here?"

Chame hadn't known which of the many gory buildings she had had to wade through the day before to bring Kagome to. She didn't want to scare the miko, but she also needed enough violence for the energy to still be around for Kagome to read it. So she had gone for the one that seemed average- there were only ten youkai here, but they had put up more of a fight than some of the others she had had to read. It was one of the last places visited, so the rogue was likely getting tired.

"This, koinu, would be what's left of Shinin's Underground alliances. They've either all cut ties with him or been destroyed like these guys. I haven't found the serpent yet, so it's likely he's still alive."

Kagome was shivering. "It's- gods. I don't even need to activate my magic to feel some of what happened."

Chame thought that was a double-edged sword- there was enough of whatever it was the miko felt that she could pick up on it immediately, but if she actively used her powers, she'd likely faint from the overload.

"I can't even smell anyone else that's been in here besides them, us, and that baka you have for a brother."

"You didn't believe me? I don't lie about not being able to do something. Not about something like this." Chame waved her hand to mean the room.

"Their claws have been wiped clean," Inu-Yasha noted.

"Yeah, they probably managed to land hits, but he cleaned up every drop of his blood and added ammonia and bleach for good measure. I couldn't breathe until I spelled the air clean of that stuff, and by doing that I probably destroyed anything of his scent that the chemicals didn't."

He knelt beside one of the bodies. "Look at the injuries. You're right about it being an energy blade, but most youkai use swords for close combat. These wounds are all wrong for a sword. More stab than slash. Probably a spear, or something long and pointed like that. And he used something blunt too."

"My brother mentioned a naginata," Chame said.

"Yeah, that could be it." He stood.

A strangle choking noise and a suddenly increased and panicky heart rate made them pause and look over at the third member of their little group.

Kagome was kneeling on the floor, one hand to her throat as she fought to breathe.

"Shin-sama?"

"What the hell did you do?"

"I didn't do anything," Chame said, frowning as she noted a second, brown energy surrounding the miko's own pink magic.

"Meh-" Kagome tried to say something, but stopped, wincing at the pain. She hadn't seemed to notice them talking to her.

"I've never seen anything like this happen," Chame said. "Not with someone just doing a reading."

"You're sixty fucking years old. You haven't seen shit."

"Shut up and let me think."

It seemed to Chame as if Kagome could actually breathe, but something was making her think she couldn't. She cocked her head to the side, noting the miko had her eyes closed, still making strange choking noises.

"Think faster. I don't deal with magic, and I sure as hell ain't getting close to a miko who's bordering on losing control."

"She's in perfect control. It's her mind that's the problem. It's elsewhere."

Kagome had started to breathe regularly, but the only noises coming from her were whimpering. She had curled up into herself, head resting on her knees as she wrapped her arms around her torso. The position reminded Chame vaguely of something she had seen earlier, but she couldn't remember what.

"Kagome?" Inu-Yasha took a few steps toward her.

She looked up, her eyes an unearthly shade of blue, and panic spread across her face. The scent of her fear was making Chame a little dizzy, it was so strong. Kagome scrambled backwards away from the kitsune and hanyou.

_\\'Don't touch me!'\\_

They had widely different looks of shock on their faces as Kagome spoke in a language she had no knowledge of.

"How the hell did she learn how to say that?" Inu-Yasha asked. "Oi, girl, I'm not going to hurt you. Snap out of it already."

Chame was too caught up in her own thoughts to tell him not to talk to Kagome while she was tied up in her magic.

Blue eyes. Not being able to breathe. That pose of utter withdrawal away from everything, hiding from the world. The very first words she had ever heard spoken from a child unable to speak for the first three years Chame had known her because it had taken her that long to regenerate her ruined voice box. Mischando.

She would have liked to have been proven wrong, but that obviously was not meant to be.

"Koinu needs to shut up while I pull her out of the spell."

Chame crouched down, eye-level with the panicking and very-not-there miko.

"It's okay," Chame said, slowly moving forward, reaching a hand out to Kagome. "Nobody's going to hurt you. They're gone now."

Déjà vu. But this time, the person she spoke to could actually reply. And lost as Kagome was in the faulty spell, she would still be channeling the event. It would be interesting to see the deviations.

"They'll come back," Kagome whispered, eyes flicking to Inu-Yasha, then back to the tiny youkai still moving towards her. Her voice was a childish soprano. "He's one of them."

Chame shook her head. "No, he's not. He's part human."

The terrified look on Kagome's face faded to one merely of panic and fear. "Really?"

Time to test to see how far Kagome was lost. "Just like you."

"What the hell are you doing, you stupid kit?" Inu-Yasha asked, confused by the scene playing out in front of him.

Chame hissed in annoyance. She turned to look up at him, the usual cheerful, innocent mask she wore dropped to show one of anger and worry. _\\'Shut up, hanyou. This is not the time to be speaking. The miko isn't herself right now, and I need to see how far gone she is before trying to pull her back. And if you keep interrupting, you're going to make her panic again.'\\_

He snarled, ready to snap back, when Kagome spoke again.

"I don't want to be like them. I'm not, am I?" And there was the split. One thought she might be like them, the other knew she was not.

"No, you're not." A pale green light lit up Chame's outreached hand. "Why don't you get up and we'll go see your mother, all right? She'll make things better."

"She always does." Kagome took Chame's hand. Brown, pink, and green energy lit up the room as both girls fell backwards away from each other.

Chame recovered first, used to the aftereffects of trying to combine youkai magic with human magic. She stood up.

"What the hell was that all about?" Inu-Yasha asked.

Chame frowned as Kagome groaned, resting one hand on her head as she slowly rose to a sitting position. "A memory," she said vaguely.

Kagome's eyes had returned to their usual stormy gray-blue. "I'm never doing that again," she whispered, her voice back to normal.

"What did you see?" Chame asked. Two things had happened with the miko- her mind chasing down the youkai who had caused the destruction of the people in this room, and her physical body accidentally being left open for another awareness to speak through it.

"There was nothing to see, only feel. It's- she only _seems_ sane."

"Who are you talking about?" Inu-Yasha asked.

"She's full of hate, and anger, and a terrifying will- obsession even- to get revenge. If I were Shinin, I'd leave the country," Kagome said softly.

"Are they the same person?" Chame asked, recalling their earlier discussion of the matter.

"She has none of Mischa's memories," Kagome said. "But she is every bad emotion Mischa has ever felt, complete with a total lack of human emotions like compassion, pity, mercy. There's only this need to destroy that which has created her."

"Are you trying to tell me the wolf did all this damage?" Inu-Yasha asked, looking around the bloody room. "Why's she after Shinin, though?"

Kagome stared at the ground. Chame said nothing. It wasn't her place to say anything of the wolf hanyou's broken childhood. She hadn't even been there for the main events, merely the aftershocks.

"Do you even know?" Inu-Yasha asked, annoyed that neither was answering the question.

"Do you remember what you did here?" Chame asked. If Kagome had been tied up with reading Kage's emotions, or what the demon had that resembled them, then the other part of Mischa's mind- the sane human half- might likely have taken the escape route Kagome's invisible bonds of magic and blood had offered. Which left Chame wondering if Mischa had snapped back to her own body or been left stranded in Kagome's mind when Chame broke the connection.

"No, I was only in the spell. I should've just fallen quiet while my mind searched for the person." Kagome continued to stare at the floor. "Can we go now? You have your answer, even if you don't have your proof."

Inu-Yasha reached a hand down to Kagome, and she hesitantly took it and let him pull her up off the ground. "Going sounds great. It smells worse than a pile of shit in here. And if you two are done speaking mysteriously, I'm hungry and want lunch."

Chame just nodded. She had a tendency to overanalyze things, but she could see no answer to her problem. She couldn't tell her grandfather the killer was Kage, because then he would put a bounty on her head. But neither was Kage here to return to hanyou form and mindset, so how could they stop her?

**-----**

Lies were wonderful things Good lies were more believable than the truth, especially when people wanted to believe you. Not that he had actually lied about where he was going today. More like left out that he was only going there because that was his usual entrance to the meeting place he and Kino had agreed upon.

Matsuro leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling with a look of absolute concentration. Sure, he was playing both sides of the field, but what else could he do while waiting for the dragon to overreach and leave himself open for attack?

But how much more would he have to sacrifice to be able to be there to make that move?

The other youkai in the room finally spoke. "How did she find out she was a guardian?"

"The kit the miko has for a ward saw it in the girl's energy and told her about it. I think the miko was the only one in the room who didn't know she was a guardian."

"Do they know what she guards?"

"It doesn't look like it. Though I wouldn't admit to knowing what it is either. That thing's got a bad track record, and I want nothing to do with it. Hell, I don't even want to be in the same room as her. She's a miko, I'm youkai. That's like putting a candle near a box of gunpowder."

"She isn't one to kill lightly. You're in no danger of being purified by her."

"Her guard is a different story," Matsuro said in an irritated fashion. "Should she even get wind of the fact I'm watching the two of them for you, she'll kill me, no questions asked. Or at least try to."

"That's been taken care of," the other said curtly.

"That was your doing?" Matsuro asked, surprised.

"I had hoped they would kill her, but this is working out just as well. I grow tired of being under Shinin's influence. No one may bind a dragon without facing the consequences of their actions, and the wolf's attacks upon him and his men are but one step in destroying him. Though I would like to know how she is keeping enough control of her mind to hunt someone down, not to mention why she chose Shinin for her prey."

Inu-Yasha's father, Matsuro recalled, had bound Kino's brother, Ryukotsusei, to slumber eternally. The consequences of his actions were wounds from the battle that would lead to his death. Kino looked to be trying something less one-on-one with the youkai that had bound him to service, but no less deadly.

Too bad he wasn't taking into account the fact he had entered the Guardian of the Shikon no Tama into the playing field. When it came to magic, nobody could top the power of an angered miko with control of the curse that had been born within her. He had only come across another miko once, almost a hundred years ago, and the furious explosion of Yukino Rei nee Meirin over the murder of her brother would be nothing compared to Kagome's, judging by what he had gleaned from their short acquaintance.

Well, he wasn't about to warn Kino about playing with fire. The dragon really should know better himself.

"Maybe she knew him back when he was still allowed in the Northern Lands. And speaking of the lands and their lords, my grandfather found me the other day," Matsuro said offhandedly.

"Ah yes, the eldest of the remaining lords of Japan. Tell me, did he ever find the person behind the destruction of the East's family?"

"You would know better than I." Only one phoenix remained in all of Japan, and she had been barely three hundred years old when she took the seat, unschooled in the ways of running her lands, due to the fact she had not even been in the line of succession.

Such was the way things went. Humans start a global war, and self-serving youkai take the ensuing chaos as a means to decimate an entire family of ruling lords. And they could get away with it too, merely by the fact that it was Hiroshima and the second Great War, and even youkai were not immune to the technologies of the ever-industrial humans.

"And what did he want?"

"Just the knowledge that I was still alive, apparently. Though he came to me later for help in discovering who's behind the attacks on your- ally."

The man chuckled. "It should be interesting to see his reaction to the answer."

"The wolf called in reinforcements before she went rogue," Matsuro said, knowing that by now, Kino would know of this.

"The next time I tell you not to call in because you're being an insubordinate jackass, ignore me when it's information that important."

Matsuro raised an eyebrow. "I take threats very seriously, _sir_, and I will not act against them unless there is no reason for you to punish me for doing so. Please do not think I'm stupid."

Red eyes glared back at him. But Matsuro had made it a point in his century-long servitude to brook no nonsense from the dragon. He did as he wished, within boundaries of his orders. He was predictable in this way, and Kino had gotten used to it. Even trusted him to do it.

"Is there any other information you have that I should know, kitsune?"

"The miko's ward bears a more than passing resemblance to my mother. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" It wasn't what he really wanted to ask, but he did work for the dragon, so being too rude was out of the question. 'Would you like to tell me why you had your men kill my father, when I expressly said if you so much as laid a finger on my father, I would personally tear every single scale off your body, one piece at a time? I'd love to hear how you thought I wouldn't learn of his death, considering I act as an information gatherer.'

Kino didn't even pause to think up a lie. Had Matsuro not known differently, he quite likely would have believed the dragon. "Your mother's family, while not extensive, does have quite a few young running around. It's quite possible she's one of your cousins."

Both knew that to be a lie, though Matsuro thought it likely that the dragon didn't know that Matsuro knew it.

"What should I do about the other hanyou, since you've managed to take care of the wolf?"

The dragon shrugged. "The West is not so over-flowing with family that they can afford to lose one, hanyou though he is. Sesshoumaru is undoubtedly keeping a close eye on his half-brother. Try not to kill him, but don't help him in his work either."

Matsuro snorted. "I would be doing that anyways. I can't stand dogs." Though his first run-in with the dog demon hadn't helped matters either. How was he supposed to know that the delectable Yukino Rei was under the protection of one of the West's brothers? Even if it was the stupid one. The one who managed to get himself bound to a tree for five hundred years because he was too human for the miko's arrow of lethal magic to actually kill him.

He snickered.

"Something amusing?"

"That dog. His bark's pitiful, his bite nonexistent. This will be fun." Pulling the dog's tail, and if Inu-Yasha was smart, getting him to notice the fact that Kino had somehow found a way to use divine magic. The wolf seemed to be the smarter of the two, but even a dog could have a moment of brilliance, short though it would be.

"I'm so glad you enjoy your orders. Keep a close eye on the miko. Should she show signs of tapping into other power sources, I want to know. And keep your hands off. I'd rather not test the theory that miko need to be pure to actually have power."

"I'm shocked you think so lowly of me, sir." Matsuro grinned at the older youkai.

"I'm shocked you haven't tried anything with her already, kitsune," the dragon answered back in the same mocking tone.

"I found other amusements," he said evasively. "Did you know she's the only virgin where she works?"

Kino rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. "Kitsune, I'd rather not hear tales of your so-called conquests. The people I have working here are bad enough without adding in your standard of lechery."

"Merely stating a fact." Matsuro paused, then deadpanned, "I've weaned it down to just three a night. It would be more, but as active as my days have been lately, I do need _some_ sleep."

Kino snorted and growled out, slightly annoyed, slightly amused, "Get out of here."

Nothing like pissing off the asshole boss. Matsuro stood, gave a sarcastic bow, and sauntered out of the room.

**-- Early Afternoon --**

Souta wasn't too sure of anything anymore. First there was the fact that he and his mother had taken an unexpected trip to Hokkaido. Then there was the fact that his return to Tokyo had been hampered by Kino-san and Ayame-chan, who didn't seem to want to let him return to the shrine, thus proving his mother right in getting out of Tokyo. Then there was Eri-san's warning about Ayame. He had only had glimpses of the bad side he knew his friend had, but she had gone much farther than declaring Ayame a bad person. Ayame, to Eri, was _**evil**_.

And now they weren't even bothering to give him the illusion of freedom. It had only been two days, but to Souta, it seemed like forever since he had snuck out of the house on Hokkaido and to the airfield nearby.

He had been hustled into a car, driven somewhere, and brought inside yet another office- this one with a pretty receptionist trying to explain to an angry man with tri-colored hair that she didn't know where Kino-sama was, and if he would just wait, she could call- and locked up in one of the private, unused offices.

There wasn't even a chair in the room to sit in.

Of course, he was currently tied up and sitting on the floor, so why were they even worried about him gaining hold of a chair and using it to break the walls down? Not that he could, but still!

A shadow fell across his face.

Odd that. There wasn't a window in here, and he couldn't sit in his own shadow. He looked up. A silver-eyed woman with dark hair towered over him, looking down at him. She looked a little familiar. Maybe it was because she had the same stillness of features Mischa did whenever she thought no one was watching. Maybe it was the shirt she had on. Mischa had one exactly like it. He didn't know much English- even Kagome was a better math student than he was at English- but he was pretty sure that _'I see stupid people'_ didn't mean anything pleasant.

He also was pretty sure that shirt had been brown to begin with, not black and red.

"Can I help you?" he said lightly.

She didn't so much as blink.

"I don't suppose you could untie me?"

She raised an eyebrow, glanced down at his wrists, then back up at his face. He looked down. They had already been cut.

"Oh," he said, shaking them off of him. "I hadn't even noticed."

Wow, rocks were more talkative than her.

"So, you going to show me the way out?"

She gave a slight motion for him to stand.

"Is that a yes or a no?" he said, standing up.

She growled softly. "Keep quiet," she said, her voice raised only slightly above a whisper.

"Sorry," he muttered. Some rescuer she was. But hey, she had spoken, so that counted for something, right?

He tried the door handle. Still locked.

"How'd you get in?" he asked, turning to the silent woman.

She grabbed the doorknob, twisted, and the door swung open. Weird. Maybe it was just locked for guys.

Deciding that the mystery of the unlocked and locked door was better left unsolved, he followed his rescuer down the hallway.

He was surprised at how difficult it was to see her. If he didn't keep his eyes on her constantly, it was like she faded into the shadows. Nor could he hear her footsteps. Of course, they were trying to sneak around an evil businessman's office, and it's only smart to not make noise while doing so. So he was trying to walk quietly too. God bless carpet, or else the pad of his bare feet would be very noticeable.

She turned down hallways, seemingly at random. Maybe this part of the building wasn't used.

Why was he trusting her to help him escape? Souta wasn't too sure. Maybe it was that spooky silence that reminded him of Mischa. Or maybe it was because no one else had bothered to check on him since dumping him in there last night. His situation couldn't get much worse, so why not try the new way to die?

He bumped into her, barely managing to keep quiet. She was more muscular than he expected, and walking into her had been like running into a wall.

"Why'd you stop?" he whispered, backing away from touching her. She raised a finger silently to her lips, warning him to stay quiet.

He huffed under his breath. Her silver glare warned him that if he made any more noise, he could escort his own damn self out of the building. He wasn't entirely sure how he knew that, but he knew it anyway.

He peeked under one of her arms to see another yet another hallway, this one well trafficked by hard-working employees. Or that's what he guessed they were. The pretty receptionist from earlier was there, though the half-crazed man with the freaky hair was gone. Whoever heard of hair being black, red, and gold all at the same time?

And how come nobody had even glanced in their direction? Must be that freaky camouflage thing the woman had going on.

She pushed him back through the doorway they stood in. He waited for her to explain what was going on, returning to his study of his rescuer's appearance.

He noted the red pattern on her shirt continued on her face. Or else they were strange scars or tattoos.

Souta continued to deny to himself the fact that much of the red splattered across her was so new that it hadn't had time to complete dry and had come away on his shirt when they'd stopped. Ignorance was bliss, after all.

**-----**

She frowned. She had forgotten about business days. She had seen the serpent enter the building and followed, intent on killing him, ignoring the humans as they muddled through their insignificant existence. But he had yet again eluded her vengeance.

Getting in had been simple. Like the shadow she had named herself after, she was looked at, but never entirely noticed. Eyes traveled across her without ever registering her presence. The boy hadn't noticed her for a good ten minutes while she was in the room he had been tied up in.

The cheap 'youkai only' lock on the door had been simple enough to bypass- she need only open the door for him and he could walk out. Lax security was a good thing when you were the one sneaking around. Of course, she _had_ gone to the trouble of taking out any of the security guards who looked too intent on performing their jobs. Life was unpleasant without a little murder every minute or so.

Were the people so caught up in their work that they could walk through the room without garnering attention? She doubted it. Like the boy, both she and her clothes were in dire need of washing, and with him along, her shadow trick wouldn't work.

Why had she rescued the human? He was noisy, and definitely hadn't bathed in a couple days. Of course, it looked as though he'd been tied up for the past day, so he had an excuse for the unpleasant odor wafting through her nostrils.

The boy stood patiently, waiting for her to speak, or to lead again. The small presence deep inside her mind nudged slightly against her awareness, reminding her of its existence.

That was why she had gone looking for him when the receptionist let slip to the serpent that the boy had come in some time last night. That little presence that had been fighting for control of the body both dwelled in.

It had disappeared mysteriously for a bit earlier in the day, and when it had come back, it was more subdued, hadn't made a single attempt to force her out of control. But when she had overheard the receptionist speaking of the boy, it had made a surprisingly powerful attack, borne solely of panic, and had almost succeeded in its attempt. Only her silent vow to look for the boy it was so worried about had made it cease its attacks upon her awareness.

Should she know the boy? He smelled similar to the miko who had attempted to purify her a few days earlier. And the miko had been there the last time she had completely woken as well. Obviously whoever's awareness she was impeding upon knew the human.

He looked to be getting impatient waiting for her to sort her thoughts out. Humans, she thought with scorn. Their lifespan was so short they needed to rush from one thing to another in a futile attempt to do everything they wanted to do. Youkai were much more patient.

She herself had waited twenty years to find the serpent again, and fortune had finally favored her, not only telling her of his location, but making it so that she had control of this body as well.

Though judging from the power of that last attack, she would not be keeping control for much longer. Which was a pity, since the other awareness did not hate enough. It feared. It hadn't let go of the events causing their separation. It needed to do some growing up.

"What do we do now?" the boy asked. She thought he meant to whisper, but it seemed to her sensitive ears that he had shouted.

She gave him a cool stare, thinking. Waiting here long was not an option- if the people here had anything resembling intelligence, they would be checking up on the room the boy was in and would find him missing and start a search of the grounds for him. Neither was it safe to walk through the building with the boy dressed as he was- his clothes were wrinkled beyond belief, and the child-casual did not blend in with the business-formal of the people working here. He would stand out as much as she would, covered in blood as she was.

"Well?"

Like any true child, he could not stay silent long. It was a miracle he had kept quiet while she led him here.

Why not be bold and walk through the hallways? They wouldn't notice her, and he looked young enough to be someone's son looking for his parent at work.

She stepped back out into the hall, listening as he followed her.

**-- May 21, a farm in the Niigata prefecture, Japan --**

Fukii thought she had pretty much mastered the task of hiding your scent. Which was why she was currently testing her abilities to follow her grandfather. The fact that he, the pack's elders, and the miko were currently having an invitation-only meeting without her had nothing to do with her plan. Nothing at all.

She was within listening distance, but that also meant they could hear her. She momentarily wished for the kitsune way of tricking others into not noticing you, but decided that her superior senses beat out additional magic. Only cheaters like kitsune would take the easy way out and not learn proper control of their body.

Of course, whatever it was she had been expecting from the discussion, it was not what happened.

True, they were talking about the ongoing attacks by random youkai, but they were taking it so much more seriously than she was. Of course, they were the elders and supposed to think about these sorts of things. She wasn't and didn't.

And she had never thought about the fact that three of the four lands' families were down to a handful of members. Hizashi-sama was the last of the phoenixes of the East; the West had Sesshoumaru-sama and his hanyou half-brother (who didn't count in lines of inheritance), and the South-

She wasn't sure how many kitsune were left. In the past few years, someone had taken to killing them. There was Yoko-sama, but his son had been killed over a month ago, the grandson had been disowned for reasons she didn't know, and the granddaughter was a genko. And the South was ruled by gold kitsune, not black kitsune.

Which meant that the other lands had only one member of the ruling family able to rule, and they were the ones already doing so.

So with the North's overabundance of relatives, had they been saved for last? Or was someone within the family trying to destroy the other lands' rulers so that the wolves could gain full control of all Japan? Or were they being set up as the scapegoat and someone else would take over all the lands?

Fukii found these thoughts disturbing, and wondered who she could speak to about them. Her fellow pups were useless when it came to anything beyond fighting- which was lots of fun, but it struck her that knowledge was often more powerful than brute strength. Just look at Mikomi. A weak human, but still allowed to sit in on youkai meetings, and listened to when she gave advice.

She frowned, her attention returning to the conversation she wasn't supposed to be listening to. Why were they worried about a serpent youkai? They were weak and, so long as you avoided their poisonous claws and bite, easy to defeat.

Of course! This wasn't about killing people. Things always went wrong when you tried to kill somebody- just look at the recent attacks on the farm. They had all ended up dead, and her uncle's missing hand was the only thing remotely resembling a serious injury. This serpent obviously wanted power through other means.

And serpent youkai, outside of battle, were very sneaky. Anything you said, they could twist to suit their meanings. Anything you did, they could use for themselves and against you. And you couldn't even trust them to lie, because sometimes the truth was the worst lie of all. So the elders were right to worry about a serpent youkai, if there was nothing physical going about.

Hold up, did the miko just say she wanted Fukii to go to Tokyo? Hell no, she just got something figured out! She could help with defenses here. Kouga had told her to get back into perfect shape for the upcoming battles- which she knew would happen, since he said so.

But the half-breed was in Tokyo. As were the other non-inheritors for the youkai lands. The hanyou of the West, the disinherited gold kitsune of the North, and the genko prohibited by species to inherit the North. Yoko-sama and Sesshoumaru-sama needed to seriously consider taking mates- again, in the kitsune's case- and having more pups. Otherwise their lands would default to the other lords upon their deaths. Unless someone spoke up for their cases and managed to convince the East and North that the West could be ruled by a hanyou and the North by a deserter.

So was she going to warn them of the possible dangers of this snake, even if they weren't in the line of succession?

Hizashi-sama hadn't been in the line of succession either.

Maybe it was her duty as a member of the family of the Northern Lands to warn them.

Not to mention she'd have tons of fun defending herself from any youkai who decided to jump the gun on the serpent's plan.

Now, just to practice her whiny 'I don't want to go!' face for when they spoke to her so they wouldn't catch on to the fact she already knew what was going on.

Or thought she did.

**-- Early Afternoon, Tokyo, Japan --**

Souta was a bit surprised no one stopped them. He noticed that people's eyes seemed to drift away from the woman walking in front of him. That was probably the main reason they didn't notice him. Maybe they thought he was an intern or something.

It all seemed to be going so easily that he wondered why he had never seemed to make it away from these people. Though being tied up and locked in a room for most of the night and half the day was a serious hindrance in all escape plans. And she seemed to have cleared that matter up in seconds.

He was not surprised when someone finally noticed him. The woman stepped quietly to the side as the gray-haired man asked,

"Who are you looking for, boy?"

Souta did his best to look suitably lost. "My father, sir. He works in marketing, but I've never been here before and I'm lost."

"Oh, marketing's on the ground floor. You've managed to find the fifth floor. Need me to walk you there?"

"Just give me directions to the elevator and I'll be fine, sir," Souta said with a friendly smile.

The old man looked to be about to question the fact Souta had managed to get on the fifth floor without knowing where the stairs were, but even if he didn't see the woman standing beside Souta, he could feel her chilly gaze upon him. He shuddered and pointed to Souta's left. "Down that hall on your right."

"Thank you, sir," Souta told him, walking off in that direction. The woman resumed her position in front of him.

He noticed she led him past the elevator.

"Shouldn't we turn there?" he asked.

He half-expected her to stop, turn, and stare him into silence. So he was very surprised when she spoke.

"Security cameras."

"Oh, yeah. And you can shut an elevator down pretty easily," he thought aloud.

She didn't reply.

A few minutes later, she led him to a door labeled 'Stairs.'

"We're on the fifth floor," he complained.

She opened the door and walked through.

"This'll take forever," he said, following her.

They had been on this leisurely walk for freedom for close to an hour now, and he could count on one hand how many words she had spoken. Even Mischa talked more than her. Of course, Mischa at least had a reason for her long bouts of silence. She had had throat surgery when she was little, and it hadn't healed properly, making it painful for her to talk for long periods of time.

"So how long has it been since you took that vow of silence?" he asked as he trotted down the stairs after his silent rescuer.

They passed the landing for the fourth floor.

"Wow, since childhood. That's a long time to go without speaking."

Third floor.

"Why'd you do it?"

She started taking the steps two at a time. Probably to get further away from him, he thought with a snicker.

He passed a woman coming out of the second floor door and heading up. He grinned as she took no notice of him, intent on watching her feet as she dashed up the stairs.

He continued his one-sided conversation. "I'd never be able to do that."

She reached the bottom of the stairs and looked up at him coming down. "I know."

"That makes a total of six words you've spoken," he told her with a grin.

He reached the bottom of the staircase. She opened the door and walked through. Following, he was surprised to note that the entrance to the building was right in front of him. Considering how long it had taken to get down here, he was expecting another maze of corridors to walk through.

He trotted after her, winking at the young girl with a phone to her ear, an annoyed look on her face.

"Hey, how'd you get in?" she asked.

"Don't worry, I'm just leaving," he assured her.

"Well that's good," she said, and returned her attention to the customer she had placed on hold to speak to him.

"This was weird," he told his silver-eyed rescuer as they walked out into the sunshine. "Why didn't anyone try to stop us? Don't they have guards or something?"

A malicious glint came to her eye, but she said nothing. He had a feeling that, if the office had had guards, it didn't anymore.

"And what are we doing now?"

"You return to your family," she told him.

"Yeah, they're probably worried sick over me disappearing for a couple days. Hey, I never did get your name."

"No, you didn't," she agreed. She took a pen and piece of paper out from a pocket and scribbled something down. "Give that to the miko," she said, handing it to him.

"Miko? Like a priestess? Do you mean Kagome? Because she's the shrine's caretaker," his voice trailed off as she nodded. He looked down at the paper. '_There are things that must be done that she will not do. I have no problems with them. Stop looking for me._' Brown eyes looked up at the silent woman. "This makes no sense, you know."

She stared impassively back at him. "Go home, boy."

And just as mysteriously as she had appeared in the empty office room, just as she had never been truly looked at by anyone in the building they had so boldly strode through, she just as suddenly disappeared from his sight.

**-- Mid Afternoon --**

Rin had declared Chame the cutest thing she'd seen since Hello Kitty and settled her into a corner of the diner where all the waitresses could keep an eye on her and still do their work. Kagome was just glad that she had the closing shift today. It had given her a couple hours to get over the strange things she had seen that morning.

Both Chame and Inu-Yasha had been surprised when she said that the spell she used shouldn't have allowed anything to happen to her body while she traced the faint energy she had picked up back to its roots. Neither had explained their reactions- Chame changed the subject every time, and Inu-Yasha had just ignored the question.

She shuddered, recalling the mind she had touched when she had come to the end of her journey. The youkai had been obsessed with her prey, and had not noticed the slight intrusion upon her thoughts. Or if she did, she hadn't cared.

"That plate's not getting any warmer, Kagome-san," Rin whispered as she carried a tub of dirty plates back to the kitchen.

Kagome brought herself back to the present. "Thanks, Rin-san," she whispered. She walked over to the table whose order she had, and set it down.

"You need anything else?" she asked with a smile.

"I'm good for now," the woman answered.

"Well, call me if you need anything." Kagome froze as she looked past the woman's head and out the window. Matsuro was walking on the other side of the street with Inu-Yasha. She could faintly hear Inu-Yasha's yells, but couldn't make anything out.

The woman turned her head to see what Kagome was looking at. "Can't say I blame you for staring, honey, but don't you need to work?" she asked.

"Yeah," she said faintly, pulling her gaze from the two and back at the woman. She gave her a sheepish smile and went back to the kitchen to grab a pitcher of water to refill drinks.

What were they doing? Matsuro had said he was going somewhere he couldn't bring Chame, but why was he with Inu-Yasha? Although the redhead had looked a little annoyed with Inu-Yasha, but that could just be because the blonde didn't seem to now how to talk at a normal volume.

Chame popped up beside her. "Do you have ice cream here?" she asked.

"Chame-chan, how'd you get back here? Never mind. What kind do you want and do you even have money to pay for it?"

Chame grinned. "Triple chocolate, and do you take rubles?"

"This is Japan, Chame-chan." She finally found a pitcher and headed back out of the kitchen, Chame following.

"Joking, Shin-sama, joking," the kitsune said, giggling.

"Just get back to the table and I'll bring you something in a bit."

"Ice cream. You better not give me vegetables."

"I wouldn't dare."

Was she watching Chame, or was Chame watching her?

Damn and thrice-damn Mischa for having a contagious case of paranoia. It was even rubbing off on her.

Kagome put herself on autopilot for work and sank herself into her thoughts again.

Where was Mischa? She had gotten nothing of surroundings from brushing minds with the demon who controlled her body now, and hadn't even sensed Mischa's presence there. Was it possible the demon had a barrier in her mind to keep the half-demon from regaining control? And if she did, was it possible she _had_ felt Kagome's intrusion, and blocked off everything but her search for the snake youkai and the reasoning behind it?

Shinin and Kino were allies, so far as youkai kept them. Matsuro was right, Kage's search for Shinin would inevitably lead her and the kitsune investigating her attacks to Kino, and thus to Souta. But how long would that take? Did they even have enough time?

How would Souta react to the fact his best friend wasn't a friend at all, and was a youkai on top of that?

She had reacted rather well to the fact demons existed and she had been Souta's age when that happened. Why shouldn't Souta react the same way? Of course, being shown that your cousin was a nice- if paranoid and antisocial- half-demon was different than being kidnapped by demons and finding out that way.

She looked at her watch. They weren't closing for another five hours. If the mystical half of her life continued to need constant watching, she might need to put in for time off. Because having to go to work for eight hours a day instead of being out searching for Souta or trying to find the two demons after her was really irritating.


	15. Fourteen: Shockwaves

**Chapter Fourteen: Shockwaves**

"_Humor brings insight and tolerance. Irony brings a deeper and less friendly understanding."_

-Agnes Repplier

**-- Mid Afternoon, May 21, Tokyo, Japan –**

Finally ditching the suspicious inu hanyou, Matsuro headed back towards the shrine. No one would be there right now, which meant he could get in a couple of hours of rest before trying to find the demon he had helped set loose on Tokyo.

Not that he wouldn't mind seeing Shinin dead, but it left the miko too distracted to be able to evade the youkai that would be coming after her. It was beginning to get around that Kino had captured her brother while looking for it, and she would be the next target on the list.

The front door was unlocked when he tried it. Frowning, he went in, trying to smell out if anyone was inside.

He was surprised to see a dark-haired teenager sitting in front of the television eating a sandwich.

Mainly because he couldn't smell the boy at all. Nor, he noticed, could he smell the sandwich.

"You must be Higurashi Souta," he said.

The boy started, dropping the sandwich as his head spun around, looking for Matsuro.

"How'd you get in?" He guessed from the boy's voice that he was fifteen, maybe sixteen.

Matsuro grinned. "The front door was unlocked and your sister said I could stop by any time."

The boy scoffed. "Yeah right. Like Kagome would ever let a complete stranger into her house."

Complete stranger? Maybe not completely. "So you are her little brother, then. She's been rather frantic about you. Have you called her work yet to say you're home?"

"Who are you?"

"Kain Matsuro. Your sister looks after my sister Chame every now and then."

The boy continued to look suspicious. "She's never mentioned that to me. I think you should leave now."

Matsuro shrugged, already working on a suggestion for the boy to calm down and accept his presence. "Might I ask how you got away from Kino-san? He's not one to evade easily."

Brown eyes narrowed. "Get out. I'm not going back there."

"I'm not asking you to. It's not like I care if Kino loses his bait. I'd just like to now how you escaped."

Some of the tension left the boy's body, though he couldn't tell if it was from his words or the spell. "Some scary silent woman came in and walked me out."

Matsuro frowned. Kino had had a lot of guards in there when he had been by that morning, and none of them would have just let someone walk out with Souta. Sitting down on one of the chairs, he asked, "That's it?"

Souta gave him a half-shrug, picking his sandwich back up. "It's not like she explained why she was there. And I thought it was a bit weird, the way no one seemed to look directly at her."

Not a kitsune- none of his kind knew when to shut up, himself included, he thought wryly- but someone who had something along the lines of kitsune suggestion. "What did she look like?"

Souta chewed thoughtfully on a mouthful of food. Swallowing, he said, "She was about your height, had long black hair up in a ponytail, and silver eyes. She had a shirt like Mischa's, something written in English on it. And tattoos on her face. At least, I think they were. Though I've never seen anybody else tattoo stripes on their face."

"I've seen a couple." Demon markings, silver eyes, silent, and the boy thought her shirt was the same as the wolf hanyou's. The amount of similarities was not coincidental, but why would she rescue him? And if it had been her, undoubtedly the guards who should have stopped her had already tried. "Was she covered in blood?"

The boy looked startled. "How'd you know?"

"She's got a reputation for killing everyone who gets in her way. She probably killed all the guards before rescuing you. Though why she'd save you, I have no idea. Where'd she go after you got out?" Why would she rescue Souta? A hanyou didn't have her memories when her demon's blood took control, so she wouldn't know whom Souta was. And why she left him alive was another question the boy couldn't answer.

Souta looked a little ill at the mention of killing. "She disappeared in front of my eyes," he mumbled. "That's how she showed up too. Wasn't there and then was there. And you think she killed them? Is she evil?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Matsuro said.

"Did you know," Souta said, as if noticing something for the first time, "that you've got a tail?"

Matsuro silently cursed the shrine's wards that refused to allow him to maintain his illusion. "Actually," he said lightly, "I've got five."

**-----**

"What the hell happened in here?" The woman asked, gawking at the amount of blood splattered across the room.

The older man with her spoke. "Someone made off with our bait. He obviously made sure to get rid of its guards first."

"I think you pissed someone off one too many times, Kino-sama," the other man said, looking ill.

"Where are the bodies? There's just blood."

Kino had hired his employees to be able to ignore most oddities in his business, but both of the young people currently walking through the room looked to be at the edge of their control. But he had other things to worry about besides squeamish human employees. Like the fact that he could smell no foreign presence in the room, nor feel any magic out of place. It was as if his guards had been killed by shadows. He could pick up the smell of death coming from the supply closet the room had.

"The obviously hid the bodies," he told the woman, stepping carefully through the room to evade the pooling blood to the closet.

"Sir, we should call the police," the woman said.

"And have them find out about the kid?" the younger man said. "Are you nuts? This room doesn't exist, according to our public records."

"But these people had lives! We can't just say they went missing."

He pulled open the door, stepping back as a torrent of limbs fell out. The younger man gagged, thankful for his empty stomach. The woman was not so lucky, and rushed out of the room to the nearest bathroom.

"They aren't missing," Kino said. "Nor are they whole. Have someone clean up in here," he ordered the still green-faced man.

The younger man nodded and followed after the woman.

Kino sat down at one of the desks and pulled up the video records for that day. He didn't expect the killer to show up in the video, but it was better to know for sure.

He was watching a replay at one of the receptionists' desks when someone came in to clean the room up. At least the human had had the sense to ask for one of the youkai workers.

"Shinin-sama is still waiting for you to speak with him, sir," the blue-haired ice youkai said as he placed the broken bodies into the large roll-around bin he had brought in with him.

"He can wait."

He remembered the woman who had been stalking Shinin the past few days. Was it possible she had followed the serpent here? He searched through the videos, looking for the times when Shinin had come in.

It was in his ally's entrance earlier this morning that he spotted the shadow. She had known just where the camera coverage was the poorest and had snuck her way between blind spots through the building.

The only time he caught a glimpse of her face was when she had followed Shinin into the building. And she had done that purposefully- looking up directly at the camera, pale eyes glittering maliciously as she gave the standard youkai one-fanged smirk. He mentally noted to invest in security cameras that recorded in color. It would be easier to learn her powers if he knew the color of the markings on her face.

When had the woman left? He fast-forwarded through the video, watching for the black flicker that meant the woman's presence.

There. Two hours later, the shadow had returned, with a boy trailing right behind her. How had she gotten him out? The door had been locked to make it so that only he could pass through it. Why had she not killed him? Her sense of morality should be gone with her sanity, so she would have had no reason to keep him alive.

Was it possible that the woman was trying to go after him, as well as Shinin?

No, this was her only brush with his men, besides the incident a few days prior where his men had accidentally roused her instead of killing her counterpart. Though it could be that she wanted to destroy his serpentine ally first, then come after him.

Better to destroy her now than to chance her figuring out his plans and wrecking them.

He reached for the phone.

**-- Late Afternoon, Niigata Prefecture, Japan --**

"I still don't understand why you're dragging me along," Fukii said in an annoyed voice.

"You can drop the innocent act, Fukii. The elders may not have been able to smell you there, but I'm not a miko for nothing," the woman at the wheel of the car said.

"Apologies, miko-sama. I just wanted to know why the adults were keeping secrets from us pups."

"You still don't know why? No doubt you've started making guesses. And rather than have you tell others what you've heard about, I'm putting Mischando in charge of you until things on the farm settle down."

"I don't take orders from you," she said grumpily. "I'm needed to help keep the farm safe. I don't want to go to Tokyo."

"Fukii, you may have lived longer than me, but kindly remember that we humans mature much more rapidly than your kind and should you continue with this childishness, I will be forced to remind you why youkai do not make trouble for a miko," the woman said calmly, eyes never leaving the road. "As for keeping the farm safe, I seem to recall Kouga-sama being needed to keep you from being mauled by a tiger youkai just yesterday."

"He surprised me," Fukii objected. "But I was winning."

"Do not lie to me or to yourself. Admit to your mistakes and learn from them."

"So why are you coming with me? I thought I would be taking the train."

"You've never been off the farm for any great amount of time. I'd rather not have you running about without supervision."

"You let your puppy go by herself," she complained.

Fukii could smell her aunt become both angry and sad at the mention of the hanyou. "My daughter was more mature than you are and by then less likely to kill anyone who touched her."

Fukii snorted. Her aunt seemed to have forgotten what Shan was like when she was little. It had meant your hand to come within five feet of the pup until the other hanyou had shown up and beaten some sense into her.

"I will only take you so far as my sister's shrine. There you can have Mischando and Kagome for supervision. Do remember not to kill anyone."

"Great, a hanyou and a human for keepers. How much more excitement can I handle?"

"Would it cheer you up any to know that the grandchildren of Yoko-sama are keeping Kagome company?"

She recalled her self-proclaimed quest to find all the non-inheritors of the Lands and see if they had anything to do with the events taking place at her home. Fukii brightened up a bit. "Really? How'd that happen?"

Glowing blue eyes looked over into Fukii's own cobalt then back to the road. "I wouldn't have any idea," the dark-haired woman said coolly.

Fukii growled. "Miko-sama, you know everything. Why are you lying to me?"

"Because that is not knowledge you need to have right now."

"So how long will this take?"

"Considering the fact I refuse to drive while tired, we will get there early tomorrow morning."

"Human travel is so slow. Why couldn't I have run?"

"I already explained that. Not to mention I'm driving quite a bit faster than you run. And Fukii, try to remember to wear the necklace I gave you. I don't feel like hearing about a white-tailed teenager on the news."

"Does the puppy have to wear one of these stupid things?" Fukii asked, pulling an intricately carved turquoise pendant on a gold chain out of her pocket to show the woman that she hadn't lost it yet.

"She was the one who showed me that bracelets were much harder to keep on while fighting. And I doubt you'd let me tattoo an illusion spell into you. Those **are** permanent, after all."

"Bet Kouga-sama never has this problem," she said, putting the necklace back in her pocket.

"No, he doesn't. But neither do you have enough control of your youki to maintain an illusion of humanity for longer than five minutes. Maybe when you're a few centuries older you can do without jewelry to hold the illusion for you, but for now you're stuck."

Fukii muttered something under her breath.

**-- Early Evening, Kyoto, Japan --**

"I am not happy with you," the redhead told the silver-haired youkai sitting across from him.

"Kino has long been under your jurisdiction. What does it matter that I returned his youngest to his care?"

"Both you and Tsukikage keep foisting your unwanted youkai on me. What makes you think I want the serpent and those dragons anymore than you do? Not to mention your hanyou relatives."

"The wolf has been there for close to a decade and my half-brother has been in Tokyo frequently over the past century, not to mention his four hundred year captivity on your lands. Why do you complain now?"

"Maybe because Tsukikage foisted Shinin on me when he had a run-in with that wolf and you sent Ayame packing when she tried to murder your half-brother. Even if it did fail spectacularly, she is just going to try again when she finds out they're sharing the same city again. And now they are all in the same city." The redhead looked slightly agitated.

"You think this Sesshoumaru adds fuel to the fire by placing them all in Tokyo?"

"I will be lucky if the city still stands at the end of the summer."

"You over exaggerate again, Yoko."

"I am a kitsune. That is what we do. That way, when things do not happen that terribly, people are happy and fail to notice that the damage is still more than it should have been."

"You have an interesting take on these matters."

"I live for your approval."

"No need to be snide. This Sesshoumaru merely makes an observation."

"Well see if you can _**observe**_ this, Sesshoumaru. Shinin plus Mischando equals one justifiably panicked wolf hanyou likely to snap at any time and an annoyed serpent youkai intent on finishing the experiment he started. Any of those dragons plus Inu-Yasha equals at least one dead body, with good odds your brother will end up one of them. Not to mention the cursed jewel, which all of those idiots have an interest in. We need to find a safe way of destroying that thing, since it appears entrusting it to pure humans is not working too well."

"You underestimate my brother. As for the jewel, we have spent centuries debating what to do with it. The solution will not be found any time soon."

"And you underestimate Kino Hachiro. Need I remind you that his brother managed to kill your father?"

There was a long pause as both youkai stared each other down; Sesshoumaru calculating what he knew of his brother and Kino Hachiro and their ways of handling matters, Yoko trying to silently impress upon the inu taiyoukai that there were too many youkai in Tokyo for him to be able to handle everything. Finally the younger of the two spoke.

"And what would you have this Sesshoumaru do?"

"Get Inu-Yasha out of there. I will talk to Tsukikage about her grandniece. But I will not have _**my**_ city destroyed because of _**your**_ problems." He paused, considering the people involved and weighing his strengths against what he knew of them. "Give me a few months to get rid of the elder two." He didn't mention his plans as to whether he would kill them or not. "Ayame is a nuisance, and entirely harmless compared to her father and the serpent that has somehow tricked the dragon into working with him. _Then_ you can let your foolish half-humans run around Tokyo again."

Sesshoumaru looked graver than usual as he looked out the window at the Kyoto skyline. "It might already be too late."

**-- Evening, Tokyo, Japan --**

"You're cheating!" Inu-Yasha yelled.

Souta laughed. "You're just mad at my awesome Super Smash Brothers skills."

"What kind of demon would eat someone to gain their powers and then shit them out? I'll take swords over that freaky marshmallow any day."

"That freaky marshmallow leads your wins by thirty, considering you have yet to win, hanyou," Matsuro said as he managed to get his character to throw Link over the edge of the playing field.

"No fair, I wasn't ready!"

"You were too busy complaining." Matsuro swore as Kirby grabbed a giant hammer that had just appeared on screen and sent Fox flying off the screen.

"You two should spend more time figuring out the controls than whining," Souta said as the 'round over' music played. "You're awful at this game. Kagome could beat you, and she always plays Yoshi."

Matsuro and Inu-Yasha exchanged blank stares over Souta's head, wondering who this Yoshi character was and why Souta seemed to dislike him.

The next round went with similar complaints, though this time Fox won.

"Beginner's luck," Souta said, annoyed.

"Never try to beat a kitsune at a game once he figures out the rules." Matsuro gave the teenager a youkai grin- all fangs.

"Because then they learn to cheat," Inu-Yasha put in.

"What can I say?" Matsuro said unapologetically. "I play to win."

The reply was cut off as both youkai and hanyou turned their heads to watch the front door. A haggard-looking Kagome walked slowly in, dropping her bag unceremoniously at the door, and barely remembering to take her shoes off.

Souta's head peered around Inu-Yasha to look over at his older sister. "You've got the coolest friends, sis!" he said happily.

She froze mid step. "Souta?" she whispered, disbelieving.

"Actually, I'm Chame in disguise," he said with a grin.

"Yeah right," said the dark-haired kitsune entering the house.

"Souta!"

Both kitsune winced at the high scream of joy, while Inu-Yasha's ears flattened against the top of his head. Kagome jumped onto the couch, past Matsuro into her brother's arms, pushing Souta back against Inu-Yasha. For a moment, the room was silent as four of the room's occupants listened to the fifth sob into her brother's chest with relief over his safe return.

She had gotten so little, Souta marveled as he patted her awkwardly, wondering what exactly he was supposed to do.

_//'How did he get here?'//_ Chame asked in youkai tongue while Souta comforted his sister, not wanting to disturb the two humans. A mixture of body language and sub-vocal sounds, the language was virtually impossible for humans to notice and completely impossible to understand.

Inu-Yasha snorted. _//'You'll never believe it.'//_

_//'He claims a silver-eyed woman with two red stripes across each cheek rescued him.'//_ Matsuro explained //_'I'm inclined to believe him, since he didn't know about youkai until I explained us to him.'//_

Chame gaped at the two. Matsuro had a half-serious, half-amused look, while Inu-Yasha was beginning to turn a faint red color from the two humans currently leaning on him, though from anger or embarrassment was anyone's guess.

Kagome's sobs died down. "I was so worried about you," she whispered, pulling her head away to look her brother up and down, checking for injury.

Souta scooted closer to Matsuro to let Kagome sit between him and Inu-Yasha. "I was only gone two days, sis. Don't you trust me to stay out of trouble?"

"No," Kagome said, chuckling weakly. "Where were you?"

"Ayame-san got me a plane ticket back to Tokyo, but her dad's men picked me up before I had a chance to call you and tell you I was back in Tokyo. And I was cooling my heels in Kino-san's offices the rest of the time."

"Kino Ayame," Kagome said softly.

"Yeah, Eri-san tore into me for making friends with her when she saw me."

Kagome looked around, taking in the paused game, the undisguised kitsune and hanyou. "Ah," she said hesitantly. "Shouldn't you be running screaming?"

Matsuro chuckled and Souta grinned at his sister. "But that would hurt their ears."

"Yeah, but you don't know about youkai. Or didn't," she said, glaring at Matsuro, the likelier of the two men to give away their demonic heritage.

"I'd have figured it out sooner or later," Souta told her. "Once you find out you've got magic, you get second thoughts about other creatures being only myths."

"Once you've got magic?" She repeated, confused.

Souta cocked his head to the side to peer at his sister innocently.

"Higurashi Souta, don't you dare make me mad. I've had the weirdest month ever since _**they**_ showed up," she motioned towards Matsuro, then Inu-Yasha, and she paused. She had only just now noticed the bead and tooth necklace was gone and that his topaz eyes were now gold, his pale blonde hair was completely silvery-white, and- were those dog ears?

"What?" he said in an irritated tone.

Matsuro, recalling her reaction to his tails, chuckled and mentally started counting down.

"Are those real?" Both of her hands grabbed hold of Inu-Yasha's ears and tugged on them.

The other three people in the room burst out laughing as Inu-Yasha swatted her hands away and leaned away from her so that he was half falling off the side of the couch. "Yes, they're real, damn it!"

_//'She has trouble staying on one subject, doesn't she?'//_ Chame asked with a giggle, climbing up to sit on the back of the couch.

_//'Just a little.'//_ Matsuro agreed, purple eyes sparkling as Kagome continued to try to grab hold of Inu-Yasha's ears. _//'The boy did a similar thing for a good half hour. Perhaps it runs in the family?'//_

_//'You two are supposed to be helping, not laughing!'//_ Inu-Yasha said as he leaned further over the armrest. "Oi, girl, get the hell away from me!"

Chame watched the entire thing with interest, then tapped Souta on the shoulder. "It's weird that you're accepting youkai so fast."

Souta shrugged. "I read a lot of manga. Put that together with the weird stuff that happens around Kagome and Mischa, and I knew something was different with our family."

"Different? With them?" Chame sounded amused, as if to say different didn't even begin to describe the two women.

Souta took her meaning literally. "Yeah. Eri-san and I talked about it once a couple years back when we were watching Kagome at an archery tournament. What normal human could make a target explode? Kagome's not strong enough to do that just with a good pull." His tone said he was of the opinion his sister probably threw like a girl. "And I've sparred with Mischa for ages. After you get a certain degree of experience, you can sense when someone's holding back. And even though Mischa's punches and kicks hurt like hell, there's always this coiled power behind them that makes me think she could've broken bones if she'd wanted to. And my hits never even faze her, much less bruise her," Souta said, still watching Inu-Yasha try to avoid Kagome's hands. "You know, if he just let her pet them for a couple minutes this would all be over."

The two kitsune exchanged glances behind Souta's head. Both silently agreed the boy was smarter than he looked, and that they should probably stop his train of thought before he tried to figure out something he shouldn't.

"You like dominoes?" Chame asked the teen.

He turned his head away from Matsuro to look at the child on his other side. "What are you talking about?"

Matsuro grinned. Before the couch's other occupants could catch on, he gave Souta a good strong shove forward. Like dominoes, the three went toppling- Souta onto Kagome, Kagome into Inu-Yasha, and Inu-Yasha succeeding in completely falling out of the couch.

Which was right onto the passing Buyo, who gave a loud pained yowl and started clawing up the nearest thing he could hit- the dog ears that had started the whole thing. Inu-Yasha yelped in pain and jumped back onto the couch- only to find there was no room. The cat ran off, still yowling in outrage.

Matsuro was holding his sides, head thrown back as he roared with laughter. Chame- yet another victim of klutziness- was too caught up in giggling to pull her head up off the carpet where she had fallen behind the couch in an unbalancing fit of laughter.

Kagome and Souta were not amused- Kagome was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe with the weight of both Inu-Yasha and Souta pressing down on her and Souta was pretty sure even a hanyou would have difficulty balancing on someone's head for more than five seconds. And with a strong shake of his head, he discovered he was right, and found out where Chame had fallen as Inu-Yasha yet again fell to the floor- this time behind the couch.

Buyo was hissing and spitting to himself inside the kitchen.

Souta finally managed to pull himself off his sister.

"What the hell just happened?" he asked.

"You being klutzy," his sister answered, not raising her head from the sofa pillow her face was buried in. "Watch your language."

"No, Matsuro-san pushed me. I didn't fall on purpose." Souta debated asking the laughing redhead why he had done that, but figured he had gotten as many answers from the kitsune as he would give for the night.

"I hate you all," came a muffled comment from the floor behind the couch.

"Hate me all you want," was the reply from the other behind the couch, "just get off my tails already. I'm losing circulation."

Matsuro's laughter had died down to snickers and he grinned widely at the sofa's two remaining occupants.

"I say this calls for a retributive strike," Souta said.

Kagome turned her head so she could breathe and eyed the still highly amused redhead. He didn't look at all apologetic for the chaos he had just caused. Kagome wondered if he had done it just for kicks or was there some sort of secret kitsune reason behind it.

"I'd say you're right," she agreed, grinning mischievously at her brother. Two dark heads tackled the kitsune and he fell over the opposite side of the couch.

"Sofas for humans!" Souta declared, flashing the grinning Matsuro a victory sign. "You can have the floor."

Kagome shoved her brother after Matsuro. "Sofas for Kagome." And she laid back down, closing her eyes.

"I think it's safe to say she won," Matsuro said, sitting up.

Souta sat up, rubbing his neck. "She cheated."

"She never actually agreed not to push you off the couch."

Chame poked her head out from under the couch. "You've got a lot of yen down here. Almost enough to buy some decent okonomiyaki."

Inu-Yasha stood up. "Fucking kitsune." //'_Would it kill you to be calm for longer than five seconds? My ears hurt like hell thanks to that monster.'//_

"Nothing like a little laughter to break up a serious mood," Matsuro said, his grin still present, pulling Chame the rest of the way out from under the couch. "And okonomiyaki isn't all that expensive." His gaze flicked to Inu-Yasha. _//'Bite me.'//_

"My point," Chame said, sticking out her tongue at her brother. //_'Your gratitude is as underwhelming as usual,'//_ she told the hanyou.

Inu-Yasha didn't reply to that comment.

Souta looked at the narrow gap the child-sized youkai had crawled through. "Squishy kid," he said.

"I'm a shapeshifter. I'm any size I want. I don't squish," she said, lifting her head haughtily. Amethyst and dark-brown sparkled with amusement at the unspoken challenge and Chame found herself fending off fingers checking for squishiness.

"Go be silly somewhere else," Kagome mumbled over the giggles. "I'm sleeping."

"You don't talk in your sleep. Idiot." //_'Just what do you morons think you're doing?'//_

Matsuro sat back from the two children to look up at an annoyed hanyou. _//'You need to learn how to loosen up, mutt. Not everyone likes feeling like monsters are about to pop out of the floor to eat them. It's obvious these kids have had a rough couple days and they need some humor to get their minds off of it.'//_

"Well, I'd be asleep, but you keep making noise." Kagome opened her eyes, suddenly remembering something. "Souta, how'd you get here anyway?"

"Walked, of course," he said, stopping to give Chame a break from her giggles to look up at his sister.

"From where?"

He shrugged. "Some office building."

"How'd you get there?" She asked, exasperated at his completely honest, yet also completely evasive answers.

"Driven."

"Souta, you're really beginning to annoy me."

"Then everything's back to normal, isn't it?" he said with a wide, innocent grin.

Kagome groaned and tossed the pillow at the boy.

"If you four are done being stupid, I'd like to know what we were talking about before this started," Inu-Yasha said grumpily.

In an amazing display of color, green, violet, blue, and brown eyes looked from one person to another, and finally all four shrugged.

"No idea," Matsuro said.

"I never remember anything that happens right before stuff gets interesting," Souta added.

"I think I was angry about something," Kagome added.

"But that's nothing unusual," her brother deadpanned.

"How do you people ever get anything done?"

"It's quite simple, really," Matsuro said. "First, find an extremely attractive person- gender your choice, it doesn't matter much to me- then strike up some witty conversation. Once you've got the foreplay out of the way-" A sofa pillow square in the face stopped his lesson.

"You people are ridiculous. I'm out of here," Inu-Yasha said. //_'Don't expect me to stay here if you're just going to be playing around. We're still short one scion, remember?'_//

"Buy more sake while you're out," Matsuro told the hanyou as he headed for the door. "They're all out."

Souta flinched, and both kitsune eyed him oddly for a moment.

Chame hopped back up on the back of the sofa. //_'You worry too much, koinu. What makes you so sure we're missing someone?'_//

Inu-Yasha's reply was a slamming door.

"And what makes you think you're staying here, Mat-kun?"

"I believe we had this discussion before, Kagome-sama. With-"

"You can find one of those sleeping tubes our city is so ridiculed for," Kagome said as he paused, not wanting to give away to Souta that Mischa was missing. "Chame, grab your brother and beat it," she mock-ordered the younger kitsune. "Me and my brother need to have a little heart-to-heart about running away, youkai, magic, honesty, and the fine art of using a phone."

Souta gulped and eyed his sister warily, praying she had forgotten what he'd said earlier. Matsuro chuckled as Chame saluted Kagome and began to unsuccessfully push her brother in the direction of the door.

"Don't expect us tomorrow, Kagome-sama," he said, ignoring the tugs on his legs to move. "The local taiyoukai thinks we're helpful, for some strange reason."

"Got you getting stuff off high shelves and lifting heavy objects for him, Mat-kun?" Kagome asked.

"What else is he good for?" Chame replied, giving up on her effort to make him move and leaning against him.

Matsuro grabbed one of his sister's tails and hoisted her over his shoulder. "I'll remember that the next time you want a piggyback ride."

"I've never wanted one of those," she said, sticking out her tongue. "Being tossed over your shoulder is just so much more exciting."

Souta cocked his head quizzically to watch the departing kitsune. "Where do you find these people, Kagome?"

"Flea markets. Now, start at the beginning..."

He sighed. Obviously she had regained her energy and would keep him up the rest of the night with questions.

**-----**

"Did you get it?" Chame asked as they headed down the stairs.

Matsuro emptied a pocket in form of a reply. Two slim silver pieces of metal rested in his hand, a long chain curling around them.

"I'm facing the wrong way to see anything, big brother," she said, pointing out that she was still draped across his shoulder like a bag of dog food. "But I can smell Musha and Shin-sama on that, not to mention the inu- when'd he get hold of it?"

He put the chain back in his pocket. "No idea. Are you sure this is going to work?"

"What, big bad gold fox scared to take on a pup?" Chame asked in an amused fashion.

"Those weren't just weak opponents she took out," he said seriously. "I recognized some of the youkai we found- and some of them could give me a run for my money."

They had reached the bottom of the staircase and started walking the short distance to his motorcycle. "It's either stop her ourselves or tell Grandfather about her and get ordered to kill her," Chame said. "And I don't want to face telling Shin-sama that our priorities are to the taiyoukai first, and to a miko sometime after that. I wouldn't survive the encounter, no matter how nice she is."

"So you're willing to let me fight a hanyou controlled by her demon blood who has somehow gained the ability to use magic and to disguise the fact that she even exists just so you don't have to fight her when Yoko-sama finds out who she is? That almost made sense, kit-chan." He set her down to get on the motorcycle.

Chame hadn't gotten on yet. Conversations were hard to hold when trying to yell in the driver's ear to be understood. "I'll admit I'm worried over the fact that she seems to be able to manipulate dead youkai's energy, but you still have two centuries on her."

"According to date of birth. Going by most every other term, we're the same age."

"A twenty-five year-old youkai is not the same age as a two centuries old youkai," Chame argued.

"She's hanyou. Her demon blood doesn't really change her form, from what I heard from the miko and the mutt. Which makes her much closer to my age."

"Quit arguing with me and track down Shinin. We know that's who she's after."

"I'm still waiting for an explanation for how you know that."

"It's none of your business."

"That's never stopped me before," he said without a hint of humor.

She hopped onto the motorcycle with him. "It really is none of your business. You might try asking the serpent. He'll tell you anything. For a price."

"His type will _do_ anything for a price. I try to stay as far away from him as possible. _You_ should probably stay a couple prefectures away from that type if you can." Matsuro was beginning to understand what the wolf's problem with the serpent probably was about.

"And yet you're wondering what type of grudge the wolf holds against him?" Chame griped. "Any ideas on where to find him?"

"Last known location was where the boy was being held, so let's try there first."

"I love late-night excursions, don't you? All those people who won't be there to ask annoying questions, like 'What's your blood-type?' and 'Where do you like to go on dates?'"

He scowled. "They annoy me."

"Pheromones," she said sagely. "They can't help it. You should try changing deodorants."

"I see you like to read that fake-intelligent American garbage. You're going to rot your mind before Kagome-sama dies of old age at this rate."

"Drive, big brother. We'll discuss reading habits some other time. We've got a hanyou to collar."


	16. Fifteen: Playing With Fire

Chapter Fifteen: Playing With Fire

"_My candle burns at both ends_

_it will not last the night _

_but oh my foes_

_and oh my friends_

_it gives a lovely light!"_

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

**-- Morning, May 22, Tokyo, Japan --**

The soft giggles of young children reached Fukii's ears as she stepped out of the car to look up at the steep staircase. She could faintly hear a young woman's voice explaining the great age of a tree.

"You don't look impressed," the miko said as she killed the car's engine and got out.

Fukii snorted. "So it's some stairs. How exciting."

"Mischando was much the same way. But human visitors are always awed by the height."

Fukii's attention returned to the woman somewhere up those stairs.

"_Who wants to hear a story?"_

"_Me! Me! Me!"_

Fukii rolled her eyes. They were like sheep, blindly following the most outspoken child. It was a wonder they hadn't died out years ago.

"What has you so distracted, Fukii?"

"_There have been people living near this tree for hundreds of years. Six hundred years ago, Tokyo was only a village, and the Goshinboku was just one tree among many- though even then it was different."_

Fukii's eyes refocused in front of her and she turned around to rest her arms on the hood of the car and asked, "Is the shrine open to visitors?"

"_And just as the Goshinboku existed then, there were also priestesses like myself in the area. One was a beautiful young woman named Kikyo."_

Mikomi looked confused by the question. "The shrine has always been open to whomever wishes to visit."

"_Kikyo was entrusted with a powerful jewel called the Shikon no Tama. It's said that it could grant wishes, just like leprechauns and genies. And many people and monsters attacked her for the jewel."_

She cocked her head to the side. "And you allow children to come as well?"

"_One day a demon came to her and did not attack her. Instead, he merely followed her and watched as she treated the ill, fed the hungry, judged the wicked. And because he made no move to attack her, she did not attack him. Because she killed only when she had no choice- either in self-defense, or to be merciful to someone already dying."_

Mikomi nodded. "Kagome is the caretaker of the shrine, she is the one in charge of who is allowed to visit and who isn't. And since she likes children, she advertises a story time complete with snacks and fun history lessons a few times a month. Why do you ask?"

"_In time, Kikyo and the demon formed a friendship- he helped keep away the people who wanted to take the jewel away from her and she helped stave off the loneliness of being different. I'm sure you can all understand what it feels like to be left out of something. He was left out of **everything**, so he felt like that all the time."_

"I can smell a lot of human children up there." Fukii didn't point out that she could also smell that the only hanyou at the top of those stairs was a dog, not a wolf, and that neither of the two kitsune her aunt had said would be there were, in fact, there. Why would Inu-Yasha be here though?

"One day, Kikyo told the demon that she was tired of guarding the Shikon no Tama and that the only way to be rid of it was to make an unselfish wish on it." 

Fukii was beginning to recognize the story from the jokes made around the farm about youkai from the West. Though there were some differences in it- the humans at the shrine had obviously forgotten much of the details and changed others as they saw fit.

"We should probably wait until they leave before heading up. I'm not sure how Kagome will react to meeting you," Mikomi said.

"_The demon, not wanting to outlive his only friend, suggested that he wish to become human. They would both get what they wanted- she would no longer be attacked for the jewel and he would be free to walk through the streets of a village without getting attacked by farmers with pitchforks."_

Fukii could hear laughter again, and figured the girl had pantomimed something to go along with her words.

"Why would you bring me here if you thought she would try to attack me?"

"_On the day they were set to make the wish, something went terribly wrong. The demon attacked Kikyo and stole the jewel, leaving her for dead."_

Mikomi chuckled. "You took my words the wrong way, Fukii. Kagome is a very-" she paused, trying to think up a good word to describe her vivacious niece.

"Very?" Fukii prompted.

"_Exuberant_ young woman. It's best to let her get her duties out of the way before letting her tackle you for hugs. Otherwise she'd never get anything done."

"_Kikyo was not quite dead, and she tracked the demon down and attacked him at this very spot. Since she was also a priestess, she had a bow just like me. So she shot him through the heart with an arrow. So great was the pull on her bow that the arrow buried itself into the wood of the Goshinboku, sealing the demon there as well."_

Fukii repressed an urge to giggle. The storyteller probably had no idea that the hanyou with her was one of the stars of her story. Instead, she raised one eyebrow quizzically. "Why would she want to hug me?"

"_But he didn't die."_

"You are related to her, through Mischando," the woman said, as if that explained everything.

"Why not?" 

"_He was powerful, I guess. Or maybe he had no heart, and had only spoken lies from the beginning. Or maybe demon anatomy is different than ours and his heart was in his stomach."_

More giggles at that thought.

"We aren't related," Fukii said shortly, annoyed at the thought a human would think she was related to a youkai.

"_Instead of dying, he was bound to eternal sleep. And after he closed his eyes to our world, Kikyo fell dead, all her power and life drained away from her in that final attack- made against both him and herself, for foolishly believing that a demon could ever befriend a human."_

Even from here, Fukii could tell that the speaker didn't believe her words. 'Idealist,' she thought.

"Were she a youkai, Fukii, would you say that you were related? After all, Shinji is your uncle, making me your aunt, and Kagome is my sister's daughter. Ginta's grandson is more distantly related to you, and you call him cousin."

Fukii was surprised at how the two had managed to make their topics coincide without ever realizing the other was speaking.

"_Kikyo's body was burned with the jewel so that she could protect it in the afterlife as she had done in her life. And no one has seen the Shikon no Tama since."_

"I guess I can see your point," Fukii grudgingly admitted. "But that still doesn't explain the hugging."

"_What about the demon? I don't see him anywhere."_

Fukii almost laughed at the irony of the boy's question. The demon- the hanyou- was _right there_ on the property. For anyone to see.

Mikomi shrugged. "She likes hugging people."

Bet that had put her immediately at odds with hands-to-yourself-or-die Shan, Fukii thought wryly.

"_Well obviously someone took him down. But you can still see the mark in the Goshinboku's trunk where he used to be."_

"_So where is he now?"_

"_That's a story for another time, kiddos. Finish off your juice and go get your stuff."_

"Sounds like things are wrapping up," Fukii said.

"What was the story?"

"Kikyo, her demon, and the Shikon no Tama. Poor choice, considering her... guest?" Fukii wasn't quite sure why Inu-Yasha was there.

Mikomi blinked confusedly at her, not understanding the correlation.

"You've got a hanyou up there, but it's not your daughter," she clarified.

"Inu-Yasha," Mikomi said, unsurprised. Fukii was a bit surprised her aunt hadn't noticed his presence at once, but decided that perhaps the miko thought the hanyou she sensed was her daughter. "But why do you say that legend is a poor choice of story? I would think it a perfect fit for my niece."

It was well known among youkai circles that Inu-Yasha had been bound to the Goshinboku- and most youkai correctly assumed that the arrow hadn't killed him because the priestess had put killing magic into the arrow. And if you wanted to kill a hanyou with magic, you used something besides a killing spell. A spell to protect him from getting wet was more likely to injure him than a purification-imbued arrow meant to kill him instantly.

Nobody could ever tell how a hanyou's half-breed status would make their magic react, so they normally stuck to just running them through with swords. Messier, but also a higher chance of success.

But her human aunt wouldn't know about Inu-Yasha and the Goshinboku, not being around when he was sealed, and not being around when he was released. Though nobody was quite sure who had done that, since most youkai couldn't even get within twenty feet of that tree, and any humans who were involved were long since dead. Nobody bothered to ask Inu-Yasha, since they knew he wouldn't talk about it.

Fukii shook her head, deciding the miko could figure it out on her own. Though she wasn't too sure why Mikomi thought the story applied to Kagome.

"So where's your puppy?" she asked, changing the subject.

Mikomi's eyes flashed a brilliant shade of blue. "Sleeping somewhere," she said with a shrug.

Fukii eyed her aunt oddly. "I thought you said her place was destroyed and she was staying at this shrine," she said, a question obvious in her voice.

"She hasn't for the past few days. I've been having trouble Seeing her," the woman admitted, her eyes turning from Fukii to the staircase. "Not a lot of kids today."

Fukii wanted to press about where her supposed babysitter was, but knew the change in topic was permanent for now. She could smell the distress on her aunt. So she followed the miko's gaze up to a large group of children racing down the stairs ahead of a handful of adults. "There's usually more?" she asked weakly.

"There's a youth center down the block that opens soon. Parents drop their kids of with Kagome before they go to work. When Kagome's finished with the kids, the stay-at-home parents walk the kids to the center and then take theirs home."

"How do you know about all this?" Fukii asked.

"I'm the one who started it. Kagome wasn't very interested in my father's stories, so I started a story time for parents who wanted their children to know more about our past and culture and put Kagome in with those children. I'll admit that there is no legend behind the name for pickles, but my honorable father still had some very good information for someone who had never actually met a youkai." Mikomi looked lost in her memories. Fukii thought it was probably a happy one, for all that the woman seemed a bit sad.

"The legend of pickles? He's crazy. But if he was the caretaker for this shrine, I guess he knew real ones too," Fukii agreed.

The children were now racing down the street away from the two.

"Grab your bags and let's go," Mikomi ordered the redhead. "I've got to be back home by nightfall."

Fukii bristled at the reminder she was being exiled, but said nothing as she pulled a worn backpack and battered roll-around suitcase out of the backseat of the car.

Fukii followed her aunt up the stairs. She noticed that there were fewer steps than she had first thought, and figured it was an optical illusion that gave it a greater appearance of height when you were at ground level.

When the two reached the top, Fukii paused to take in the sight. The shrine was well kept. The buildings were all in a good state of shape, the signs weren't broken or drawn on, and a young woman in a white gi and blue hakama was sweeping up the only signs that anyone had visited- used plastic cups, paper napkins, and dirty footprints.

Looking at the young priestess, Fukii was beginning to understand why that specific legend fit her well. Fukii didn't know any magic, but she could smell it on the miko, and there was too much magic in her for it to be only her power. The Shikon no Tama, Fukii realized, had been bound to those of Kikyo's blood when it was burned away with her. Did this priestess know that? She looked over at her aunt. Just how many reasons did the woman have for sending her here? It was obvious there was more than one.

She could smell that the hanyou was inside, but was disturbed to hear two voices murmuring quietly- why couldn't she smell the other person inside the building?

The priestess looked up from her chore at her visitors. "Aunt Mikomi!" She squealed with delight, dropping her broom to hug her aunt.

Fukii snorted. Humans were overly emotional, and this one looked to be even flightier than most.

"Hello to you too, Kagome," the older miko said, returning the hug, then pulling back to look the girl over. "You need to eat more. Those clothes used to fit you," the woman scolded.

"Yeah, well, I don't eat when I'm worried. And with Souta and Mischa..." The girl paused, finally noticing Fukii, immediately noting the red hair. "Not another kitsune," she groaned.

Fukii snorted with disapproval. "You're not a very good miko if you think just because I've got red hair, I must be a fox." She silently noted with approval that Kagome could at least tell she was youkai, even with the warded pendant she wore.

"Hey, not all of us can smell the differences between youkai," Kagome said.

"You should be able to tell what she is though, Kagome," Mikomi said.

Fukii was silent as Kagome looked her over. Gray-blue eyes took in the bright red hair, the vivid blue eyes, the lean musculature of a sprinter, the youthfulness of features that said Fukii was still a child, the worn backpack and suitcase. Fukii eyes danced with laughter as Kagome's gaze returned to her belt, noting the shuriken decorating it innocently.

"Wolf youkai," Kagome finally said. "You've got that same look Mischa has, and you have the same eyes. I'd appreciate you not carrying weapons so openly either."

Fukii grinned. Maybe this babysitter wouldn't be too bad. But who was Mischa, and where was her other babysitter? She'd be older now. "It's not like I use them very often."

"Nicely done, Kagome," Mikomi congratulated her niece. "Fukii is one of Mischa's many cousins on her father's side. There have been some problems at the farm, and Fukii's poking into them more than she should."

"And you want me watch out for her? Aunt Mikomi, things in Tokyo aren't any better. Mischa..." Kagome's voice trailed off.

Fukii finally understood. Mischa was Kagome's way of saying Mischando. Shan was youkai enough to not want to be called by her full name. Nobody could break Mikomi of the habit of addressing everyone by their name, but Kagome looked to understand the request, if not the reason behind it.

"Don't worry about her," Mikomi said. "She'll be fine. Fukii, this is Kagome, my sister's daughter. Kagome, this is Fukii, my brother-in-law's eldest pup."

"Pleased to meet you," Fukii said. "Even if I don't want to be here."

Kagome grinned. "At least you're honest. And I'm always happy to meet more of the family."

Fukii remembered Mikomi's earlier words about family, and refrained from pointing out that they weren't actually related. The miko seemed nice enough.

"Kagome, I'd like you and Mischando, when she returns, to watch out for Fukii for me. I'll come back for her when things get better at the farm."

Kagome was silently relieved at the 'when Mischa returns' in her aunt's request. Fukii frowned as she realized just how long she might be exiled from her family.

"It's no problem at all. I'm always taking in strays, and at least this one is family," Kagome said with a grin.

"I'm not a stray," Fukii grumbled.

"It's a figure of speech. Can I call you Fukii or do you go by something else?" Kagome asked.

"Call me Ki. Mikomi-obasama is the only one who calls me Fukii regularly."

"Okay, Ki. Someday you youkai are going to have to explain why you don't go by your full names," Kagome said, shaking her head.

"Superstition," Mikomi said.

"Says the human," Fukii replied with a snort. "Name magic doesn't work for or on anyone with human blood, but it's different for youkai."

Kagome rolled her eyes. "I take it this is a frequent argument."

"Not really," Fukii replied. "Not with me, anyway. And I know this is going to sound weird, but why do I smell one person inside, but hear two voices?"

Kagome shrugged. "It's Souta and Inu-Yasha inside, but I don't know why you only smell one of them."

Fukii looked at her aunt inquisitively. The woman chuckled. "That's for you to figure out on your own, Fukii. Kagome, I need to return to the farm. Tell Mischando I love her the next time you see her."

Both girls looked confused at the request. "Okay," Kagome agreed.

"And Fukii, try to remember not to take that necklace off here. It won't help if you don't wear it."

"You only told me this ten million times," the redhead said, rolling her eyes.

The woman sighed.

"Have a safe drive, Aunt Mikomi," Kagome said.

As Mikomi left, Fukii turned to Kagome and asked, "So who's this Souta you keep mentioning?"

**-----**

"I'd like to thank you for getting someone to kill that psychopath," the man with the tri-colored hair said to the older man sitting at the table with him.

One green eyebrow rose delicately as the man wondered about what murder the gratitude was for.

"I hadn't realized your kitsune was so good with a sword," the first continued. "Usually the opponent with the longer reach has the advantage, but for a tall guy, he's amazingly fast and got in too close for her to be able to use her weapon to its best advantage."

The green-haired man nodded silently, thoughts whirling. He hadn't sent Matsuro after Shinin's stalker. The boy looked down upon killing people he knew. Though he had mentioned being worried the woman would kill him once she found out whom he worked for. A preemptive strike, perhaps? Or had the notoriously icy woman turned down the handsome redhead and he was doing the usual over-the-top kitsune act? He often compared the overly emotional kitsune to humans, but he didn't see Matsuro killing someone for turning him down.

"You are quite certain she is dead?" he asked.

"I always forget that kid is an elementalist. He's only used basic kitsune magic or swordplay. But hell if he didn't set her on fire when she turned his magic on him," the other said.

Matsuro didn't like resorting to magic. He didn't have much training- something Kino had made sure of, since their elements were opposites. He knew the kitsune worked for him only grudgingly, and it was only a matter of time before the youngster turned on him. Matsuro's lack of training in his elemental magic was one less thing to worry about when that happened. "You are not making much sense."

"He hasn't reported in yet?"

Kino shook his head.

"I guess he didn't survive it then."

Kino did a double take. "Survive?"

"She ran him through. It's not usually lethal for us, but he must have blown off more energy than I thought taking her out."

"You didn't check to see if they were alive or dead?"

"The entire area was on fire," he said defensively.

"Start at the beginning and stop giving me pieces of the puzzle."

"I was just leaving _Vincenni's_..."

**-- Flashback, Late Evening, May 21 --**

_A flash of silver was all the warning he had as he leapt a good ten feet to the side, away from the woman that had suddenly appeared in front of him, wielding a silver energy blade that had been aimed straight for his heart._

"_Who the hell are you?" he asked her, noting the complete emptiness of the street with all his senses. He couldn't even sense her with anything beyond his eyes._

_She didn't reply, merely took a few steps to get within range and made an expert jab at him. He sidestepped, and the weapon swung to follow him._

_Distantly he noted that he hated the naginata- the blade on the end made for easy attacks at a greater distance than a sword could reach, and the staff section was long enough to easily use as a weapon should the defender be guarded against slashing weapons._

_But he was more worried about dodging her attacks than complaining about the geisha who had made use of the weapon popular in the last several centuries. He had seen what had happened to those she had killed earlier, and he wasn't about to chance her manipulating his powers. He just had to not come in contact with either her or the weapon._

_Too bad the man who had just barreled into him didn't know that. Shinin slid across the pavement, crouching to keep from falling over, as he watched a redhead wielding a gold energy blade expertly parry a rush of furious attacks._

'_It's about time Kino sent someone to kill her,' he thought, stepping further away from the fight. He was beginning to feel that the dragon wanted her to kill him._

_Watching the fight, he immediately noticed two things- she looked very faintly familiar, and the kitsune's gold weapon was fading with each blow it blocked. Both the woman and the redhead knew it too- her face showed neither anger nor pleasure at the boy's interference, but the redhead looked frustrated. He continued to pour his weakening magic into the blade, and once again the night was lit up with gold and silver sparks as the spar continued._

_The boy was steadily losing ground as the two unconsciously moved their fight into a side alley to keep from prying eyes._

_Shinin knew he had to get out of there before the boy ended up getting himself killed and the woman returned to her task of trying to kill him, but there was something about the set of the redhead's face that said he wouldn't go easily. And if Kino had sent him, he would know something about the woman's power- some of Kino's own guards had been killed earlier that day._

_The glow of the redhead's sword was fading again- a sure sign of his weakening power. But he didn't strengthen it- and Kino watched in fascinated horror as the sword disappeared with one final attack, and the woman counterattacked in a swirl of silver __**and**__ gold, impaling the young youkai on a weapon that combined both her magic and his- enough power to take out a youkai twice as powerful as the redhead._

_But he didn't look to want to die so soon, Shinin thought, continuing to quietly back away. The redhead mouthed something he couldn't hear, sinking to his knees. The woman frowned, her battle stance relaxing, though still not withdrawing the naginata she still held in the kitsune's chest. It looked to be the opening the redhead was looking for._

_He sprang up, the naginata disappearing as the woman released it to try and back away from him, and he enclosed her in a tight embrace._

_Shinin's mouth dropped open, but before he could dwell on the implications of that movement, the kitsune's body burst into flames, engulfing the entire alley- including the woman captive in his arms- with fire. Faintly he could see both forms collapsing in the orange flames._

_The sound of sirens broke him from his reverie, and he ran, almost running over a dark-haired young woman running towards the fire._

**-- End Flashback --**

Kino was silent for a while after the serpent had finished his story.

Matsuro hadn't been fully taught in elemental magic when he left his family, and Kino had made sure the kitsune had never gotten further lessons in its use. He was a water-user himself, and the volatile kitsune was better off without the power to throw off the shackles Kino had placed upon him.

It was obvious from Shinin's telling of last night's events that the kitsune still remembered some of his father's lessons. But not enough to be able to use his magic without physical contact. And with as dangerous a demon as she had turned out to be, the more physical contact to relay the power, the better.

"The fire undoubtedly did not touch him," he told the other, "but he has obviously gone somewhere to lick his wounds. I'm uncertain whether he even has enough energy left to speed-heal, or if he'll die from those wounds."

"If that's the sort of stuff you have him doing, you should consider giving him a raise."

Kino didn't point out that the redhead wasn't paid, nor had he been ordered to kill her.

Unless, of course, his grandfather had mentioned it to him. The wily old kitsune was well known for making other people do his dirty work, and he had no doubt the lord was displeased with the mess she had caused in their turbulent city. Asking his grandson to kill her so she'd stop making a mess was well within his character; especially considering the fact he didn't know who she was.

Did Shinin? "Have you any idea who she was?"

Shinin shook his head. "No idea, but I've made plenty of enemies. We all have."

"A shame," Kino said emotionlessly. "Now we'll never know why she wanted to ruin you."

Kino allowed himself a faint smile. Then only he knew that the Guardian's protector was dead and that the Guardian was vulnerable. Only he and a kitsune too wounded to move more than five feet without falling unconscious. Matsuro had nobody to tell of her death, even should he regain consciousness and live through the possibly fatal wounds the rogue hanyou had given him.

**-----**

Mikomi didn't start the car immediately as she got back in. Instead she rested her forehead on the steering wheel, silently crying.

It wasn't _when_ her daughter returned. It was _if._

Mikomi couldn't See her. She hadn't been able to See her for the past two days, and even though she knew her daughter was safe for the moment, there would only be two reasons why her foresight failed her. One, Mischando had gone youkai- which she had, but she wasn't any longer. Two, what happened after Mischando returned to herself was beyond her ability to See because Mikomi wouldn't be alive during that time.

The farm would be attacked soon. The last of the Lands to survive into the twentieth century would be destroyed, with few survivors. Fukii had been sent away for her own protection- Tsukikage was childless and had recently named her heir, should something happen to Kouga. They wouldn't think to look for the successor to the North in the South's lands.

For all her ability to see beyond what any normal human or youkai could see, Mikomi was at a loss of who was behind the attacks. She knew he had to be old, even for youkai.

Almost all of the dogs of the Western Lands were killed close to a millennium ago. Sesshoumaru hadn't even been a decade old when all those he would have called family were killed. It was why his father had taken a human for a wife centuries later- no one would care about those children, thus ensuring the bloodline for at least another generation.

As much as kitsune fooled around, they were notoriously infertile, and the South had never been a large family. And Matsuro's defection and Shippo's death had left Yoko in a bad situation; let Chame be named heir and thus let the black foxes take control of gold territory, find another mate- something the kitsune was unlikely to do, as they mated for life- or convince Matsuro to take a mate and name that child heir. Matsuro would never be allowed back into the family so long as he continued the life he led.

The phoenixes of the East were another relatively small family, and only young Hizashi had managed to evade the murders calculated to occur all at the same time to prevent the others from being warned. And with the confusion of the atomic bomb dropped on the city the phoenixes called home, whoever it was who had planned it had gotten away with it without anyone ever realizing that it was another youkai, not American technology, that had killed the powerful Lord and his family. Hizashi was only distantly related to the previous Lord, but she was one of the only phoenixes left in the country, and the only one even remotely related to her predecessor. And to prevent confusion, Yoko, Sesshoumaru, and Tsukikage had named the young phoenix the Lady of the East, for all that she wasn't even three centuries old.

Tsukikage was childless. Mikomi didn't know the story behind that, but knew that she had named her brother her heir, and should anything happen to him, a young redhead showing signs of common sense was next in line. And with as many pups running around the farm, the attackers wouldn't miss her. That she was the second heir wasn't common knowledge- Fukii herself didn't know.

Mikomi wondered if the problems with the Lands and the problems with her family were related. Her family tree was a straight line of first-born sons from Meirin Akira to her own father. And it wasn't as if they had been only children- Akira had had five children, and his brother two, but only Akira's eldest had lived past the age of eighteen.

When she was younger, she would read the family history, and had immediately noticed that every of her ancestors had had many brushes with death- though some were pure accidents. Many of the incidents had ended happily- she herself had been pulled out of the icy lake by a passing Good Samaritan, and each of the stories in the family records had the same sort of person showing up to help. But miracles didn't always happen, and thus the weeding out of the gene pool.

Her father had been the first to live past the age of fifty. It was as if someone had a personal grudge with her entire family. And only a youkai was that long lived. Was it possible there were two- one helping the family into the afterlife, the other helping them to stay alive?

Who was behind the destruction of the Lords' families? Who was playing with her own family? What were the reasons behind the deaths?

It was her duty to stand by her husband and his family to see if they could keep the deaths to a minimum, but she knew if she could no longer See her daughter with her foresight, that she would be one of those deaths. She would fall to the family curse of dying before she reached fifty. But forty-eight was close.

"Tell my daughter I love her, Kagome. If you ever see her again."

**-----**

She was drifting in a haze of pain and thoughts. She kept turning, looking for an escape, but knew there was none. There never was. And as always, she accepted the pain and the alien thoughts, and could once again feel.

She hurt too much to try and open her eyes, so she relied on her other senses to tell her of her surroundings.

Touch. She was laying on something soft- a bed? Something light but soft rested on top of her body. Her arms, legs, and torso had the familiar sensation of being bound in bandages. She remembered she had been in a fight, but she didn't remember gaining all these wounds, nor could she remember falling unconscious. What had happened? And where were her clothes?

Smell. Somebody had been cooking. It smelled like toast. And something else, something cool- milk? And there was a medicinal tang in the air as well. Five years of study told her the smell came from something meant to treat burns. She figured that was what the bandages around her were for. When had she gotten burned? She couldn't tell what the other smell was. Something used in hospitals, she knew, but the fogginess the pain was creating in her mind wouldn't allow her to remember what it was used for.

Sound. Someone was near her, breathing softly. Deeply asleep- maybe in a coma. She'd never heard someone sleep that soundly before. Someone else was in the room- they were eating. It sounded like cereal. Had they finished off the toast or was it still on a plate?

The other sense that told her she was yet again in human form. Not actually the power of a miko, just that of another elementalist still learning her powers. The two with her were demons, but not unfriendly. Young, as demons went. Both were completely drained of their energy, and one had the faded feel of someone near death. She recognized the Chame-sense from her previous human days, and could only guess that the other was Matsuro. When had he gotten hurt?

The diner finished chewing food and she could hear metal on plastic- probably put the spoon down in the bowl.

"Glad to see he didn't kill you, Musha," a young soprano said. "How are you feeling?"

"Hurt," she said hoarsely.

"Not surprised. Bet you're wondering what's going on," the child said.

She gave a faint nod, knowing the sharp-eyed kitsune would see it and not wanting to try to speak again.

"Did you know that a hanyou has both a youkai form and human form? But unlike being in human form, a hanyou has no control and often no memory of what they do in their youkai form."

Chame spoke with the same voice her professors at university did- studied, bored disinterest. She wasn't fooled. The kitsune was overjoyed at the chance to talk about something she knew about magical philosophy.

"And unlike human form, the time spent as a youkai is not set- it can happen at any time, for any length of time. After a certain length, I'd imagine it becomes impossible for the hanyou to ever regain control of their mind again."

She had a sinking feeling that she was the subject of this lecture. Chame continued relentlessly on.

"Like a miko can change a hanyou into their human form by purifying them, a hanyou can unconsciously call upon their demon blood to take control, thus creating the youkai form of a hanyou. This only happens at times of near death, but it also takes near-death instances to return them to their usual form. Though that last part hasn't yet been proven or unproven. Obviously no hanyou would want to take part in that kind of experiment."

She wanted Chame to get to the part where she told her what had happened and how long she had been out.

"Those dog tags resting so innocently on your breast seal your demon inside of you, making sure your youkai blood never gains control. But remove them and fatally injure you, you become a demon. Kagome said your demon wants to be called Kage. Hence me addressing you by Musha. Calling you and your other half Kage would become confusing."

What had given Kagome cause to make a seal for her demon blood? She wasn't surprised she hadn't noticed the seal- like the few other hanyou she knew, she was practically magic-blind. It was the down side of her innate ability to destabilize magic spells. She couldn't see magic any better than it could see her.

_Musha_. Warrior. _Kage_. Shadow. Chame knew about the dog tags, and probably taken the time to investigate what she had written on them when Kagome had first given them to her. _Kagemusha_. Shadow warrior. The first person to notice it thought she had meant ninja. That was when she wrote Kurosawa on it. Briefly she wondered if Kurosawa Eri was related to the famous director.

She wondered what Chame's thoughts were on the meanings behind the words.

"We aren't too sure why your other half still has your control. No other hanyou who's ever been controlled by their demon blood has managed that feat. It's my belief that there's something in your psyche already wants to give in to the demon, so it doesn't get pushed to the back when your blood goes to your head like the rest of your personality goes. Hence the somewhat sane appearance of your alter ego."

A closet psychiatrist. Who would have guessed? Had the topic not been so painful, she might have even been amused. As it was, she wanted to throttle the kitsune for presuming that some part of her wanted to kill everyone just for the pleasure it would bring.

"You've been controlled by your demon blood for the past two days. Do you remember anything after the fight near where Shin-sama works?"

She wasn't sure. There were brief flashes of ghosts from her nightmares, and one clear flash of cutting through ropes that tied a boy's hands and feet.

"Souta?" she whispered, unsure of what the foggy memory meant.

"Is perfectly safe. He showed back up at the shrine yesterday, unhurt. Says you rescued him."

Chame, she knew, could smell the confusion and shock on her. So she didn't bother voicing her question.

"No, he didn't know it was you. Your form changes from human to hanyou to youkai. Though if he thinks about it, and learns you're a hanyou, he might be able to figure out that the creepy silent woman who rescued him didn't just bear a resemblance to you. She _was_ you, in a sense." Chame's voice sounded amused.

Kagome had reacted well to the fact she was half demon, but who knew how well Souta would? She half-wished Chame would put her out of her misery. And wondered why Matsuro was sleeping.

"There's something you should know about the seal Kagome put on the dog tags," Chame said, her voice no longer amused. "Because she changed the magic. It doesn't come off now- I tried. And you've been completely sealed into your human form."

As seemed to be happening often with her these days, Meirin Mischando once again found herself blacking out.


	17. Sixteen: Coming to An Understanding

AN: A partial reincarnated soul list, for everyone wondering who's who. Feel free to complain.

_Ayame_- Kagura. It struck me that Naraku was made up of many demons, and he made his incarnations out of them. So wouldn't it make sense that with his death, those demons are free to reincarnate? And Ayame- what little of her character I've already decided- is a somewhat Kagura-ish character. She's not helping her father just because he's her father. She's helping him because she watched him tear her mother limb from limb and eat her before her very eyes. She's in much the same boat as Matsuro, but he gets away with more because he's of an opposing element and isn't related to him.

_Chame_- Rin. Rin's not really an important character in the series, but kids are just so gosh-darned cute! Chame's got two things going for her- her schizoid child/adult personalities and her virtual fountain of magical knowledge. Black foxes are **the** wizards of the youkai world, since you can't really hire one of the taiyoukai to work for you.

_Kagome_- Got herself a brand-spanking new soul. (Betcha you were expecting Midoriko. Nopers. Midoriko is bound to the jewel, though she is an ancestor of hers.) Maybe if I knew more about how Kikyo was before she died, I might have kept the 'Kagome is Kikyo's reincarnation' thing, but I don't.

_Matsuro_- Miroku! We all knew this one. _grins_ He's not as grabby with the main characters, but he gets more than his predecessor, if you know what I mean. But I don't write that stuff, plus it's not important. Just, uh, use your imagination.

_Mikomi_- Kaede. No reason beyond they're both priestesses, old, and advisors to people who'd rather not get the advice.

_Mischa_- For the first couple months of writing this, I wavered between Sango and Kikyo. I've ended up making her Kikyo. And for those of you worried about me pairing her off with Inu-Yasha, don't be. I don't like canon/OC pairings. Pairing will be Kagome/IY, if I bother trying to write it at all. But Mischa does have the stoic 'I'm doing this because it's my job' thing to her, even if she does care deeply for her family, and her hanyou status is a bit like Kikyo's undead status. (Reasoning behind the physical similarities between Mischa, Kikyo, and Kagome will be explained later. By a rather unlikely source.)

_Souta_- Kohaku. The reincarnation isn't as important for him as it is for a few of the others, nor does Kohaku's life bear much resemblance to his. Souta isn't being controlled by the bad guys, though he does have some issues he needs to work out with Ayame.

Sango's still a toss-up. (Actually, I have this idea about her soul not even being around, but I get ahead of myself. That stuff won't be explained for forever.)

**Chapter Sixteen: Coming To An Understanding**

"_Allwissend bin ich nicht; doch viel ist mir bewusst."_

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I do not know everything; still there is much I understand.

**-- Late Morning, May 22, Tokyo, Japan --**

Kagome thought red must be a common hair color for youkai. Though she admitted to herself that compared to Fukii's flaming red locks, Matsuro had practically brown hair.

It was obvious that Fukii didn't get along with Inu-Yasha any better than Matsuro- though she didn't make a joke out of him like the kitsune did. Which told her that Fukii was definitely not a kitsune- they laughed more often. It was that serious look to her face that reminded of her Mischa.

Fukii and Inu-Yasha were arguing with each other about why they couldn't smell Souta. It was gross if you forgot they were demons. Who else would want to be able to smell someone?

Souta was ignoring the argument, intent on finishing his manga. Kagome recognized the title and knew Souta had it practically memorized, which meant he was only feigning disinterest in the argument. Probably hanging on every word, the brat.

She was getting a headache from it all. "Inu-Yasha, do you get along with anyone? Honestly, you sound like you're five years old, arguing with everyone all the time. Why not just ask Souta why he doesn't have a scent?"

Fukii stared intently at Souta as Inu-Yasha's attention moved from her to the miko busy emptying the dishwasher.

"Do you think I haven't? The little brat won't tell. And you won't let me beat the information out of him."

"Mischa never complained about not being able to smell him," Kagome said.

Souta looked up from his manga. "Why would she?" he asked, curious.

The knife she was holding dropped to the floor with a clatter. She hadn't told Souta about Mischa being hanyou. Oops.

"You're an elementalist, aren't you?" Fukii asked the boy.

Kagome breathed a sigh of relief as Souta looked guiltily over at the young wolf youkai. "How'd you guess?"

"Most youkai know how to hide their scent, but for a human to be able to hide his scent, he'd have to be an air elementalist. You know, controlling the air around yourself to prevent it from carrying your scent."

Kagome had already gone over this last night with her brother. She wasn't an elementalist, but she could help him learn the basics of magic. Except he had progressed far beyond the basics she knew about other magics. How he figured out what he did know was anybody's guess, since she hadn't managed to get him to confess where he learned it.

"You couldn't have just told me that?" Inu-Yasha asked the boy.

Souta buried himself back into his manga. Kagome knew that Souta was about to say something stupid.

"You didn't ask nicely."

Inu-Yasha's growl was probably audible to the neighbors. Fukii was blinking blankly at the young human still flipping pages as he continued to read. Kagome was silently trying to divide prime numbers by seventeen to keep from either laughing or screaming. They were both being stupid.

"Listen, you little shit," Inu-Yasha said, walking over to the boy, one hand out to grab him and drag him off the chair.

Two things stopped him- a pink whip of magic snapping between him and the boy and Souta looking up from his book to glare angrily at the hanyou.

"What the hell did I ever do to you? What do you think I owe you for you to expect me to answer all your questions?" Souta asked angrily. His eyes were glowing an eerie pale blue, though his irises were still brown. "I won't take your insults or your orders, especially not when I'm sitting right in my own house."

"Both of you stop it, right now," Kagome ordered, still glowing a faint pink. "Going at each other's throats isn't going to help anybody."

Fukii had taken cover on the opposite side of the room. Kagome's anger had made the magic snap dangerously close to the young youkai and she didn't want to know what would happen if the next attack of purification energy hit.

"Teach him some manners," Inu-Yasha told the still angry woman.

"Tell him to keep his interrogation to himself. I don't owe him anything," Souta said.

Kagome slammed the dishwasher shut. "What the hell has gotten into you?" she asked angrily. Three sets of eyes watched as she stormed into the room to glower down at her brother. "Maybe I wasn't clear enough last night that whatever's going on right now isn't a game meant to be taken lightly. Come with me," she ordered, tugging the boy up from his seat. "You should see something."

Fukii and Inu-Yasha exchanged blank looks as the two humans disappeared out the front door.

"You're one to talk about manners," Fukii told the hanyou. "Your idea of being polite is to cut back on your cussing."

"You stay out of this, pup," he said, annoyed. "This doesn't concern you."

"They concern me a lot more than they do you," she said, drawing herself up to her complete height of five foot one. "You have no ties to them beyond Shan, and she's not even here." Fukii didn't point out that her first thoughts at having the young miko for a babysitter had not exactly been kind. She was trying to be more open minded about being somewhat related to a human, and even if Inu-Yasha was half human, no part of him was related to this family.

"I could say the same for you. And don't assume to know why I'm here."

"I don't need to assume. I'm not stupid and I know the legends just as well as you do. You may claim to have accepted being a half-demon, but she's still got the Shikon no Tama and once it's put into your life, you can never break away from it."

Inu-Yasha's anger dimmed to confusion. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"You can smell the magic," Fukii said. "Even a pup like me can tell the difference between a human's magic power and that of the jewel. You hanyou can't, can you?" she asked, cocking her head to one side. He glared at her. She snorted. "You're tied to it all the same. The cursed jewel never lets go of the souls tangled in its history, no matter how long you were bound to a tree."

Inu-Yasha growled. "Don't you dare accuse me of being here for it."

Fukii glared. "I'm not. Listen to what I'm saying, you stupid mutt. It _called_ you here. It's cursed. What do you want to bet everyone in this family are reincarnates of other people tied to the jewel? And someone else has figured out that she has it. Why else would anyone care about a couple of humans?"

"Are you trying to tell me that the Shikon no Tama still exists and that someone has found that out?"

"You better believe it. It's common knowledge that the Meirin family has magic in its blood. Their line dates back a millennium. It's amazing what you hear when you eavesdrop on conversations between the lords. They're the descendants of Midoriko. And if you know enough legends and have met her, it seems kind of obvious what happened. The jewel was burned with Kikyo's body, but that just bound the jewel into the blood instead of it having a physical form."

"A guardian," he said softly. "The kit said it was inside of her." Inu-Yasha narrowed his eyes. "The lords know all this?"

She nodded. "They've been arguing over what to do about it for years."

"Does Shan know about this? And why haven't they decided on something?"

The redhead shrugged. "Shan knows something. I heard Kouga complaining to Tsukikage about Yoko's high-handedness at naming her hogosha without his permission. And what is there to decide on? The jewel doesn't have a physical form, so you could say that the miko herself is the Shikon no Tama."

"She shouldn't be left unprotected," Inu-Yasha said. "And Shan couldn't even guard herself, much less something as powerful as the Shikon."

"What would you know about that?" Fukii asked angrily. "You weren't even there, you didn't see her. And damn it, where is she?"

"She went rogue," he said, going to look for Kagome and Souta.

Fukii gaped. None of her overheard conversations had mentioned Shan going rogue. She may not like her cousin much, but going rogue was a death sentence.

It had to have been on purpose. One less protector for Kagome.

But how did the jewel tie in with the lords? It couldn't be coincidence that the North, West, and South had relatives in the area. And the only reason the East didn't was because there was only one, and she was busy tracking down the latest clue to her family's destruction.

Fukii was getting a headache. She'd take open fights over trickery any day. How the taiyoukai put up with it was anyone's guess. She jogged after Inu-Yasha.

**-- Early Afternoon --**

Chame was getting bored of watch them sleep. Sure, Matsuro was hovering near death and it was only because she had poured most of her energy into him that he was even still alive. But he should at least be awake by now. Conversations with herself didn't go anywhere.

And Mischa. She wasn't surprised the woman had fainted after hearing she was stuck as a human. Chame wouldn't have reacted any better. But that didn't mean she had to fall asleep! Who cared if the woman had been caught in a fire?

Speaking of that fire, who was the woman she had seen when she had teleported the two fallen combatants away? There was too much smoke in the air to be able to smell the woman, but she could see her. And the woman hadn't looked surprised when Chame had put the fire out with a simple power word. Just surprised to see Chame.

Chame was also getting bored of doodling. Kagome had forgotten to return her pictures, and she didn't want to redraw them all. She didn't have enough crayons to do that.

Mischa's heartbeat and breathing changed.

"Hey, sleepyhead. Gotten over the fact you're human yet?"

Mischa mumbled something she must've learned from Inu-Yasha.

Denial. Always the first reaction to bad news. Chame rolled her eyes. "That's great. Can you move yet? Because I'm way too drained to actually be able to stand up and bring you food, and I know you must be starving."

"I think you tied me to the bed," Mischa said in a hoarse voice.

"Nah, big brother would've done that, except he's been unconscious. So, can you move?"

Chame watched as Mischa's eyelids flickered. They didn't open. She wasn't surprised- when she had check the woman's eyes in the alley, they had been completely dry from the fire and Chame thought it possible that Mischa had also been blinded by the flash of light caused by the fire.

The young woman slowly sat up, scooting backwards to lean against the wall behind the bed. "I think that's about as far as I can move. Looks like I'll be starving for a bit," she said, one sided of mouth quirking up in an unhappy half-smile.

With her eyes closed and her greater height disguised by the fact she was sitting down, she was the exact double of Kagome. The only thing that kept Chame from completely panicking that a miko sat in the bed was the lower-pitched voice. Kagome was a soprano, and Mischa's usual alto voice was not much higher than it was normally was.

"Can I take off the bandages, Chame? I'm losing circulation."

Had Mischa ever called her by her name before? Not that she could recall. Guess it really was youkai instinct to not address people by their names. "I guess. You're supposed to be the doctor, you tell me."

"I'm a veterinary student. Kagome's the one studying to actually go into medicine."

Chame shrugged, then realized Mischa wouldn't see it. "I don't know much about treating burns. I just went to the nearest drugstore and asked the guy at the counter."

"What exactly happened? Starting with the fight I was outnumbered in."

Chame frowned. Mischa had to be trying to avoid thinking about the fact that she was pretty much blind- no nose, no hearing, weaker eyesight, and picky human emotions to boot. Maybe she needed the distraction. "Do you really want to know?"

"No, but I should know anyway," the woman said softly, bowing her head.

"I don't really know much. The miko and the dog found you Saturday morning in youkai form at that place near where she works. When she tried to purify you, you dodged her and jumped out a window to hitch a ride on one of the cars on the street."

"I remember going there," Mischa said. "The chain broke in the fight."

"Un, they found the tags there. Sunday, Yoko-sama asked me to look into a bunch of murders."

"How does that tie in?"

"They all worked for Shinin Dokuhebi."

Chame could hear the woman's heart start to race and waited until her pulse had lowered some to continue.

"I brought big brother along to keep guard while I tried to read what happened to them. Dozens of youkai dead, and I couldn't even tell him the attacker's gender, much less what type of youkai he was. All I could tell was that the attacker was a black hole on my magic sense and that the youkai were killed with a naginata. And big brother had to tell me that, since I don't know weapons."

"Are you trying to tell me I did that?"

"Yeah."

Silence reigned in the room. Chame wasn't too sure what else to say. Mischa took the time to feel the bandages wrapped all along her arms.

"How did I end up like this?"

Chame figured Mischa meant wounded, not human. "We thought up a plan on to stop you. We tracked Shinin down to a restaurant, and you attacked him when he left the building. Big brother interfered and you turned your attention to him, letting Shinin get away again."

Chame paused, wondering if she should tell Mischa what she could do in youkai form. Deciding the hanyou was unlikely to ever wish to be youkai, she started up again.

"He's a great swordsman, but not so experienced in the magic department, from what I can tell. And since he doesn't carry a sword with him, he was using an energy blade. And you were somehow draining that power away from him. And when he ran out of power, you combined your power with his and ran him through with your energy blade."

Mischa hissed. "I'm hanyou. I don't have magic."

"You aren't able to access demon magic while you have human blood running through your system and you can't access your human magic when you have demon blood. I think it might be that way with all hanyou. It's never been looked into, since hanyou are so secretive about their human days and they're killed when they go rogue."

"He's still breathing."

"You've got good hearing for a human," Chame said with a grin. "Big brother's a fire elementalist. A very clumsy one," she added with disgust. "Wherever he's been the past century, he hasn't learned anything beyond the basic ability to summon fire and pour it into whatever he's touching. And since you're not an elementalist, you weren't able to pull that magic away from him, so he, ah..." Chame trailed off.

"Set me on fire," Mischa said flatly.

"Un," Chame agreed. "You might want to consider a bath when you feel like getting up. You smell more like a kitsune than I do."

"Pour it into whatever he's touching," Mischa repeated, understanding why her face wasn't as burnt as the rest of her. "Should he ever decide to wake up, I'm kicking him into next week."

"It's not like he had a choice!" Chame said. "You were going to kill him!"

"And still am."

"Not funny, Musha. He just saved your ass from the Lord of the Southern Lands, and the least you could do is feel grateful!"

"Who do you think put me in this position to begin with, Chame?" The woman asked, managing to open her eyes to narrow them into a glare at the young kitsune. "He's so full of shit. Only youkai can be hogosha, but he goes right ahead and names me one. Fucking kitsune."

She sounded remarkable like Inu-Yasha right there. Chame silently vowed that, should she ever have children, she wouldn't allow Inu-Yasha near them until they reached adulthood.

"The protector of the guardian of the Shikon no Tama," Chame said, understanding at once that it was Yoko who had caused the demon markings to appear on the hanyou's face. But it was still beyond her why a hanyou with no magic would be given a title influenced solely on how powerful you were in the magic department. "And you've got the demon markings to back the claim up. Why you?"

"Ki told me once that cursed items bind souls together. She probably spends more time poking into other people's business than your brother spends thinking about sex." Chame grinned, remembering the nosy, bossy, redheaded, white-tailed girl from her visits to the Niigata farm. "I'm probably one of those unlucky souls. I would have been stuck watching out for Kagome even if Yoko hadn't given me the title. I doubt very much that he would kill me if he found out I went rogue. And now I'm completely useless."

She had rescued Souta from the dragon without ever realizing who he was. She hadn't killed Kagome when the miko had flung purification power at her. Killer though Kage was, she somehow subconsciously still recognized her family. Was that why Yoko had named her hogosha or did he name her hogosha so that she wouldn't kill her family, should she go youkai?

"You still should be grateful," Chame mumbled, not wanting to share her thoughts with the injured woman on the bed.

"And maybe when he wakes up, I'll be grateful. But right now, I'm in a bit too much pain to consider thanking someone for burning me alive!"

"You fucking ran him through! What was he supposed to do?"

Inu-Yasha was bad for her vocabulary as well. She made another mental note to kick him the next time she saw him.

"How should I know? I don't even remember any of this happening, and probably never will." Mischa sank lower, tired from the argument.

A low groan kept Chame from replying. "Brother?" Chame got off the chair to walk over to the bed her brother was laying on.

"I thought you were too tired to move," Mischa said.

"Arguments always give me energy," Chame quipped.

Matsuro opened his eyes, blinking unfocusedly at the ceiling. Slowly, he sat up and took in his surroundings. His eyes paused on Chame, and he nodded faintly. Amethyst eyes noted the occupant of the other bed. "Didn't manage to kill you, I see."

"It seems I am made of sterner stuff," she replied coolly.

He leaned his head back against the wall. "Remind me never to do that again."

"Remind me to give you lessons," Chame muttered. She was still confused as to why Matsuro didn't know how to use his elemental magic.

"How'd you put the fire out?" He asked the dark-haired kitsune currently unwrapping his bandages to prod at the still mostly-open wound.

"Power word," Chame said, poking the wound again.

He winced. "Quit that. What's a power word?"

She looked up from the wound, startled by the question. He didn't know what it was? "It's a type of spell. You put a portion of your power into a verbal command, and then, when you need that to happen, you say the word."

"That explains the 'stop that' I heard you say right before I passed out," he said with a weak grin. "I thought you were scolding the fire."

Mischa hid a grin and got to work unwrapping her arms so she could take in the damage.

"Yeah, it's a broad enough word that I just need to focus on what I want to stop. I guess since you're not an actual magician, you wouldn't know about them. It's popular with the lords." Chame took a washcloth and started wiping away dried blood from the wound, Matsuro wincing with each stroke.

Mischa was debating whether her burns were second or third degree when she got the itchy sensation that she was being watched. She looked up and met both kitsune's eyes. "What?" she asked.

Matsuro cocked his head to the side as Chame shrugged and returned to her work. "You look almost exactly like Kagome-sama," he noted.

"So I have been told," she said.

"Your scents are different," he went on. "Kagome-sama smells like sakura and rain. You smell like tea and moonlight."

She gave him a flat look. "Your point?"

"Beyond your eye color, it's the only noticeable difference," Matsuro continued, friendly mask already falling into place to disguise the complete pain he felt from Chame's attention to the unhealing wound in his chest. "Kagemusha, hm?"

Kagemusha. In Kurosawa's film, the unimportant thief with the same face as his daimyo. For her… Expendable bodyguard with the same exact features as a guardian.

Every muscle in her body froze as she stared like a deer in headlights into calculating amethyst.

**-- Early Afternoon, Niigata, Japan --**

Yoko eyed the dark-haired woman at the desk carefully. She looked to be concentrating fully upon the paperwork she was writing, but telltale flickers in her cobalt blue eyes said that she was somewhat distracted from her work by his request.

"She stays," the black wolf finally ordered.

"Tsukikage, I do not think you truly appreciate what is going on. Kouga's granddaughter is not safe in Tokyo right now. The serpent was always disappointed my son interrupted his playtime, and the dragon is calling attention back to that family."

"You are merely annoyed by the fact that the Shikon no Tama falls under your jurisdiction. I would think you would be happy about the fact its guardian has a hogosha. The last few did not."

"Because the rest of you thought Inu-Yasha would be enough," he said shortly.

She looked a bit unhappy at his accusation, but did not deny the truth of the words. "Until we find out why they are after the jewel, there is not much to do, Yoko," the woman said.

"The bloodlines have all changed, Tsuki. The first-born was always a son. That has failed to happen in both these latest generations- only daughters for the last caretaker of the shrine, and both of their first-borns are female. It has gotten so bad that only family can recognize the presence of the jewel."

"Then that does not explain how you can sense it," the woman said, a knowing smile playing across her lips.

"My grandson is very stupid," he said with a sigh. "And that is long past."

She nodded in agreement. "The guardian stays in Tokyo, because trouble will follow her wherever she may go. Her hogosha stays by her side."

Yoko frowned. "Her hogosha disappeared days ago."

"Then why do you ask me to withdraw her back to the farm, when even you cannot find her?"

"Everything comes back to family. Only a wolf can track down someone as evasive as her."

"I have already sent one of the children to Tokyo to find her," Tsukikage reassured the older youkai.

"That is good to hear," he said.

"She will not be requesting the hanyou to return to her former home," she added. "The hanyou made her choice and I will not allow you to unmake it for her."

"You practically forced her there."

"Yoko, quit trying to place the blame on parties not even involved. Even you missed seeing Shinin's play to discover the interaction between hanyou blood and magic."

"And nobody knows what he found out," Yoko murmured.

Tsukikage sighed. "It varies from hanyou to hanyou. Anything he learned about how magic reacts around my grandniece has no bearings on how it will react around any other hanyou."

"How did you learn that?" Yoko asked.

"Something Sesshoumaru did to his brother once, that I used to kill a hanyou a few centuries ago. It did not even faze the dog, but the spider... dissolved. Rather disgusting, actually," she said, scrunching her nose up at the memory.

"That was you? From the amount of magic being thrown around, I thought it was one of the pups still learning to channel properly."

"Battle. And I would prefer not to recall the entire event, it was too close of a fight for comfort."

"Tsukikage, you have been the taiyoukai of the Northern Lands for four hundred years. What hanyou could possibly be on even terms with you in battle?"

"This was a few decades before my father died, Yoko. And the hanyou was probably two centuries old- very experienced for a half-demon. They mature faster than youkai."

"So it is possible for an experienced enough hanyou to take on an heir," Yoko mused.

Tsukikage mulled over his words, claws tapping her desk lightly. "There are not so many heirs that we can test that theory, Yoko, but it would seem that way."

Yoko continued to look thoughtful. "We can use that, somehow."

"Were you not the one asking me to help you get rid of the hanyou presence in Tokyo?"

"You have already told me that it is too late for that, and when one door closes, another door opens. If I cannot get them out of the city, I can make them work for me. Thank you for the help, Tsukikage."

"Should I be flattered or suspicious of your motives, kitsune? My grandniece may be hanyou, but she is still my brother's granddaughter and I will not have you sacrificing her to kill a serpent."

Yoko's feral grin sent shivers down the younger youkai's spine. "It is not a serpent I want to kill. I am after much bigger prey." He disappeared in a swirl of red bubbles.

"Why else would he talk to me about Mischando, if not because of her collision with Shinin?" she mused, worried about the ancient youkai's reasons. "Who else in Tokyo would have dealings with a hanyou?"

She made a note to look into the matter later, then returned to her paperwork.

**-- Early Afternoon, Tokyo, Japan --**

Souta obviously was not understanding her lecture on why annoying youkai was a bad idea. Maybe she should add some visual examples.

"Ne, Souta, look at the torii," Kagome ordered the dark-haired boy beside her. "Tell me what you see."

"It's a big red gateway just like it's always been, sis," he said, still annoyed that he had been the one called out on bad behavior.

"That's what you see at first glance. I mean really look at it," she said.

Souta sighed and she glared at him. He put up his hands in mock surrender and ran light fingers over the wood.

"There's kanji written all over it," he said. "I've never seen them here before."

"Did you ever look for them?"

"No. And none of these make sense. I mean look here, this is '_tenken'_ right here," he said, pointing one finger at a spot, "but it's followed up by '_gen'ei_' and those really don't-"

"Souta, you're reading it like it's supposed to make sense to us," Kagome said. "Kanji is used differently in spells. Not to mention it's in Chinese, not Japanese. It was a Buddhist monk who first placed the spell on the torii, when he learned of the-"

"Huh? The torii's a giant spell?" The boy said, cutting off the history lesson, still inspecting the carvings on the large red gate.

"It's a part of one giant spell, yes. The torii's spell strips all youkai illusions the moment they step onto shrine grounds. Why do you think the kitsune that were here earlier didn't have human illusions?"

"I didn't really think about," he said. "I was a bit overwhelmed, okay?"

Kagome grinned, looking up at the torii. "Yeah, you would be. But knowing that youkai are here sometimes isn't enough. Something stronger can be needed." She walked towards the Goshinboku, motioning for Souta to follow. "Have you ever just sat under its branches, Souta?"

"All the time," he said, closing his eyes as they stopped. "It's peaceful. Like all my problems are nothing compared to the miracles that happen in my life."

"Goshinboku is a tree and trees have no need for violence. What is the need for rush or death, for the immobile, immortal tree? But magic runs through him," Kagome said, a fond smile on her face as she placed one hand on the tree's trunk, "and he can't help but share his patience and peace through that magic. And with his great age, he has a great reach, our Goshinboku."

Souta opened his eyes. "So we fight less around the tree?" he asked, unsure of what she meant.

"Something along those lines, yes," she said, taking her hand away from the tree. "He has a stronger influence on youkai, since this is holy ground. But visitors always leave feeling a bit better about the world than they did when they arrived. Though sometimes I wonder if prolonged exposure to him builds up an immunity. You certainly weren't very nice this morning, and I know my temper wasn't too good either."

"You were probably in the right," he admitted. "I just... I know I screwed up, but I don't want some stranger pointing it out to me, you know?"

Kagome smiled fondly at her brother, then gazed up into the tree. "Is he just some stranger?" she murmured quietly, recalling some of Inu-Yasha's words.

"You say something?" Souta asked.

She shook her head. "Let's get back to the lecture." Souta groaned. "Goshinboku and the torii only protect the shrine's grounds," she said. "Leave the grounds, and you can only depend on yourself and your friends. And Inu-Yasha is a friend, Souta. He's kind of like Mischa, you know? Grumpy and very much not a people person."

Souta looked thoughtful, but didn't reply.

"So this all serious, okay, Souta?"

Souta eyed his sister, a calculating look in his eyes. "So what exactly is going on?"

Kagome didn't answer, instead turning her head to watch the sky. "Do you sense that, Souta?"

Souta blinked a couple times, but shook his head. "I don't know how to sense things, if I can at all."

"Something's coming," she whispered. "Young, still growing into power. Not hostile, not right now anyway, but also not friendly."

"Maybe it's just me, Kagome, but the name demon doesn't really imply friendly. Until I get to know them better, I'm going to trust all youkai to do what's in their best interest first and what's in my best interest last."

"That's beneath you," she scolded, looking down from the sky to glare at her brother.

"And it's idealistic of you," he replied.

'Just how many people are going to tell me that thinking the best of people is stupid?' Kagome thought with a sigh.

Souta looked up, looking for what his sister sensed. "I don't see anything."

"It's a dragon," a young voice said from behind them.

Souta started, spinning around quickly to see who had snuck up on them. Kagome didn't look surprised.

Fukii eyed the boy, puzzled as to why her words startled him. "It's much too far away for me to smell anything, but you get a feel for species."

"Any reason why a dragon would come here?" Souta asked.

"Maybe you're lucky and she only wants to talk," said Inu-Yasha, dropping out of the tree. "I swear, if that bitch tries to kill me again, laws or no, I'm killing her."

"It's one thing to kill minor youkai, mutt. It's another thing to kill a dragon," Fukii said.

"I was hoping it wasn't her," Kagome said softly.

"Who?" Souta asked.

"Your friend Ayame."

Inu-Yasha snorted. "You sure can pick them, kid."

"He's friends with her?" Fukii asked, cobalt eyes going wide. "Nobody but an idiot-" She broke off.

"If we're quite done telling me I'm stupid," Souta said shortly, "does anyone want to tell my why you didn't tell me she was youkai earlier?"

"The green hair is a dead give-away," Inu-Yasha said.

"Or did you think we were talking about some other Kino Hachiro last night?" Kagome asked.

"I feel loved," he muttered, trying not to show how foolish he felt.

Four heads watched a sinewy, twenty-foot long (not including the tail) jade green dragon land in the largest cleared area of the shrine property. Blue smoke surrounded it, and in its place, stood a young girl with short dark green hair, and a very noticeable long, scaled jade green tail.

It had been awhile since Kagome had last seen Kino Ayame, and she was surprised to see that Ayame and Fukii looked to be the same age. They were probably born within decades of each other. 'Looks like I'm already thinking about years the way youkai do,' she thought wryly.

The girl looked surprised to see her tail. "I suppose it's a good thing I never visited earlier," she said with a weak grin in their direction. "Do you think we could talk?"


	18. Seventeen: Family Ties

AN: My cast seems to get younger- or at least have the appearance of youth. Matsuro, Kagome, and Inu-Yasha are the only actual adults of the younger generation. Souta and Mischa are roughly the same age- around 15; as are Ayame and Fukii- around 12; and Chame rounds it off at a whopping 8. … Eh, that's still better than it is in the series. _None_ of them are legally old enough to drink.

**Chapter Seventeen: Family Ties**

"_Life is hard. After all, it kills you."_

-Katherine Hepburn

**-- Early Afternoon, May 22, Niigata Prefecture, Japan --**

The gas pedal was floored on the little Honda Civic. The only thing keeping it from colliding with traffic on the winding road was the fact that there was no traffic. It was too early in the season for the few tourists the mountains got, and the people who did visit didn't have cars.

Someone had once said that humans invented technology to one-up the more powerful youkai. She doubted it was true, but youkai certainly did have an aversion to all things mechanical. Likely because they would finally get accustomed to something only to find out it was twenty years outdated.

She had bought the car when she had lived in Tokyo, and had brought it with her back home to the wolf farm because she knew she would have to go back to Tokyo, and she didn't want to be dependent upon her husband and his family to get her there.

She knew something was wrong. Powerfully wrong. The speedometer passed 90 as she continued to race home, trying to beat the evil she sensed to the one place she had ever fully called home.

She also knew her death was mere hours away. She could no longer tap into the gift she had had her whole life- what had driven her to Kobe to find a priestess who knew how to teach children how to use their powers, what had sent her to Niigata in her search for meaning, what had driven her back to Tokyo when her sister lay battered and bleeding in her own home, in labor and dying, what had driven her to seek out a silver-haired youkai to barter services- his brother's for hers, and what had again sent her back to Tokyo when she realized that her daughter would not be enough.

The gift, her curse, was gone, and she was merely a miko with a duty to protect her home.

The speedometer hit 100.

**-- Tokyo, Japan --**

"Like hell we'll talk with you," Inu-Yasha said, cracking his fists.

"No!" Both Souta and Kagome shouted as the hanyou charged the young youkai.

Before the punch landed, Ayame's long green tail whipped around and wrapped around his wrist, catching him lose his balance, and she flicked her tail around to grab him in a quick push-pull and sent him flying back in the direction he had been coming from.

"I didn't come here to pick a fight, bastard," she told the hanyou already jumping back up to his feet.

Fukii grabbed hold of the two humans' arms as they moved to interfere. Both winced at the strength of her grip.

"Be still," she ordered them, blue eyes glaring up at the two.

"What-" Souta began.

"Just watch."

Kagome took note of the look in the short redhead's eyes, and nodded in assent. Fukii released her arm, but continued to hold on to Souta as he continued to try to get free from her firm grip.

"Just watch, boy. Humans don't interfere in youkai battles," she said sternly.

"Who are you calling boy? You're even younger than me."

Fukii cursed the fact youkai aged slower than humans. She had to be a hundred years older than this kid. Recalling her promise to try and think of the pair as family, she refrained from snapping the arm still firmly held in her grip. "Just. Watch. The. Fight," she said slowly and clearly.

Souta glared. "Look, short stuff-"

"They aren't trying very hard, are they?" Kagome asked innocently.

The glaring adolescents swapped their attention from each other to look for what Kagome was seeing.

It was a strange fight, Fukii thought. Not that it could really be considered a fight- it took two to have a real fight. Ayame stood her ground, arms crossed across her chest, feet planted firmly in the ground, short green hair swirling about her face with every pass her tail made to send the hanyou flying away from her each time he tried to get within range of hitting her.

Fukii was used to the rough and tumble free-for-all her fellow cousins used, but this spar was something else entirely. Ayame was entirely on the defensive- she made no move to attack or counterattack when Inu-Yasha left himself open. And it wasn't as if the young dragon was having problems dodging his half-hearted attacks, judging by the experienced way she used only her long tail to keep him at bay.

Of course, Fukii had never seen Inu-Yasha hold back so much in a fight. It was obvious he was testing the young dragon-girl for something, but she couldn't quite see what it was yet.

"He's got holes in his guard," Souta said, quickly catching on to what Kagome was still trying to understand. "And she's not attacking, much less aiming for those weak points. Just keeping him away from her and so stopping him from hurting her."

"Which means?" Fukii added, finally realizing what both hanyou and youkai were doing in the strange fight.

"He's leaving them open on purpose?" Kagome answered hesitantly. "He's definitely old enough to have tons of practice in keeping up his guard. And if he's leaving it open like Souta says and she's not taking advantage of it..." she trailed off, wondering what that meant.

"Just what exactly are they doing?" Souta asked, watching as Inu-Yasha again got knocked aside by Ayame's long tail. Ayame had yet to actually move anything besides her tail to block Inu-Yasha's attacks. Maybe if he had a tail, he could pick up some pointers, but Inu-Yasha's sloppy style was well below what he was used to from Mischa and he didn't have a great urge to learn it.

"Are you done playing?" Fukii asked the two.

Neither was breathing heavily and both looked entirely bored with the whole matter. Both humans looked puzzled at the reasons behind the strange actions.

"I suppose," Inu-Yasha said. "I still don't trust you," he said, pointing one clawed finger at the green-haired girl, "but you can talk."

"Oh don't worry, I'm still going to kill you," she reassured the hanyou with a smirk. "But as the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is… well, not my friend. But an ally."

"Sometimes," Kagome said. "What enemy could we possibly have that you have?"

"And just what the hell were you two fighting about?" Souta asked, ignoring Kagome pinching his arm to remind him to watch his language.

"He was testing my intentions, Souta-kun," Ayame told her classmate.

"If the little runt had fought back, I would've actually tried to kill her," Inu-Yasha said grumpily, moving away from the dragon girl. "But she didn't, and Sesshoumaru would kill me if I killed her without provocation- not that I don't have any," he added, glaring at the youkai. "Those assassins you sent were terrible."

"It was a delaying tactic. The delay worked, but obviously my father changed his plans as to what he wanted done." She looked irritated at the fact that she had had to go through the trouble of incurring the wrath of the dog brothers and hadn't even gotten so much as a 'thank you' from the older dragon.

"Just say what you wanted to say and get the hell away from here so I can get back to wanting to kill you."

Kagome sighed softly, deciding to stay out of the entire conversation, since she absolutely no idea what the two were talking about. She was still having trouble adjusting to the fact that the supposed 'manipulative little bitch' was... speaking with them like they were on even terms. Which, she admitted, was better than her attacking. Not that she could, standing under the Goshinboku as most of them were.

"Kino Hachiro ceased to exist in 1891," Ayame said without preamble.

Silence reigned throughout the shrine's grounds.

"When were you unsealed, Inu-Yasha?" the dragon girl asked softly. "Do you remember your father dying? Do you remember who killed him? Do you remember that he, too, was sealed away? And did you know an untrained monk releasing all his energy to remove a seal will destroy every seal within a hundred miles? You weren't the only one freed that day. You were lucky enough to have an older brother who wanted your help, not your identity. If you plan on taking on the dragon who claims to be Kino Hachiro, you're going to need a lot more help than a couple of kids."

Before the four had finished processing her questions- and before they could be insulted by her last statement- she shifted form back into a dragon and flew off.

"Unsealed?" Kagome repeated.

"Who else was sealed?" Fukii asked, trying to remember how the last Lord of the Western Lands had died.

"Then who's pretending to be Kino-san? And why? And does anyone else know?"

"And why the hell should we believe anything she said?" Inu-Yasha asked the trio staring at him.

"Why else would she have said that?" Souta asked.

Fukii rolled her eyes. The naiveté of young humans was beyond compare.

Inu-Yasha was less tactful about his ridicule. "Maybe because she wants to screw with your mind? What kind of moron would believe anything an enemy says? Try thinking before you open your mouth again. You're even more clueless than your sister."

"Oi!" Souta said angrily.

"I've found that your enemies tell the truth much more often than your supposed friends do," Kagome said, glowering at the hanyou.

Fukii got the feeling that this was a very sore subject for the miko. "Why don't you just ask someone about it then?"

Souta looked puzzled, Kagome slapped her forehead in frustration, and Inu-Yasha growled quietly.

"You didn't?" Fukii asked disbelievingly. A faint blush on Kagome's part and more growling from Inu-Yasha.

"What are you talking about?" Souta asked.

Fukii started laughing.

"Knock off, you dumb wolf!"

Kagome grinned sheepishly at Souta. "See, there are these demons trying to kill me. And we've spent the past week or so trying to find out what they want. Minus having to go to work and taking finals," she added.

Souta looked oddly at his sister. 'And she said I took the youkai thing with ease. She's not worried that people are trying to kill her? And just randomly listing it as something that happens in her day just like going to work? Either she's insane or... I don't know.'

Inu-Yasha slammed a fist down onto Fukii's head, but the young wolf continued to howl with laughter. "Got themselves into the hugest mess possible and they don't even have the brains to ask someone how it happened!"

"Who does she think you should have talked to?" Souta whispered to his sister, making a warding sign while staring at the laughing redhead.

"The youkai lords."

Inu-Yasha spoke up before Souta could ask who they were. "There's one for each cardinal direction, and Tokyo is the hometown of one of them. Fuck, he probably knows everything about what's going on and is wondering why the hell we haven't gone to him for help. I hate kitsune. Fucking morons and their goddamn mind games." Inu-Yasha continued to rant about kitsune, lords, and bastard brothers.

"Demons are more silly than evil, aren't they, Kagome?"

"Sure looks like it," she said, watching Inu-Yasha pace, still angrily arguing with himself, and Fukii holding her sides in laughter. "Why do you suppose Ayame-san spoke about sealed demons? That's a lost art."

Fukii's laughter died down to giggles. "It wasn't when they were sealed," she told the young miko with a sly smile. "I don't know about what the dragon meant about her father and a brother, but Inu-Yasha-"

A hand slapped itself over Fukii's mouth. "That's none of their business, runt," Inu-Yasha said, annoyed.

Fukii growled and Kagome glowered at the two. "More secrets?" she asked angrily. "Either you two tell me everything you know or you're going home, familial requests or not."

Souta decided to never get on Kagome's bad side again. Her glare was getting scarier from being around demons.

"She doesn't know anything," Inu-Yasha said.

"Oh really? She seems to know something about you being sealed and I don't know anything about that," Kagome said.

Fukii's eyes sparkled with malicious amusement as Inu-Yasha gaped at the young human.

"Sis, I'm sure this is a terrible time, but I called Yoshi-sensei this morning and told him I was back in town, and he expects me to be at practice."

Kagome let out a long sigh, her glare softening to annoyance to look at her brother. "Souta, couldn't you have waited awhile before going back to playing soccer?"

"What's soccer?" Fukii asked, amused at how easily the miko's emotions swung around.

"You don't know what soccer is?" Souta asked, looking at the short redhead in amazement. "Only the best game in the world. See, there's two teams-"

"Just take her with you, Souta. Your explanations are terrible. Inu-Yasha and I need to have a very long conversation, and it's probably just as well you weren't here to interrupt."

"Yes!" Souta ran back inside to grab his sports bag.

"Ki-chan, keep him out of trouble, please? I only just got him back, and I'm worried someone will try to take him again," Kagome asked the young demoness.

Everybody seemed to be keeping an eye on everybody else, Fukii thought. But nobody seemed able to keep an eye on the important people- the dragons, the lords, and one rogue hanyou who might have the answers to her questions. But if someone would be going after the kid, it would give her another shot on proving her worth to her grandfather. Tiger youkai seemed out to make her look bad, and if she wanted Kouga to continue to train her, she'd have to continue to keep in shape while on this stupid side trip to Tokyo.

"Of course," she said.

"Now that that's out of the way," Kagome said, gray-blue eyes locking with Inu-Yasha's amber ones, "I believe you owe me a very long explanation."

"Fuck," he cursed, already knowing she would have the story out of him come hell or high water. The glint in Fukii's cobalt eyes said she had already figured out how stubborn the miko could be and was taking great amusement in his torment.

Souta came back out of the house, blue sports bag swung over one shoulder.

"So, about this soccer thing you like?" Fukii said, distracting him from the hanyou and human quietly talking further away.

"Oh yeah. It's something like this..."

Inu-Yasha paused to watch the brunet and redhead leave. "That's probably not the wisest decision you've ever made, girl," he told Kagome.

"It's just soccer practice."

"Which is why you convinced a youkai to watch out for him at it. She may just be a kid, but she's one of the smartest wolves on that entire farm, including the elders," he said with a snort.

"I'm trying to play it safe. Ignoring enemies won't cause them to disappear. So, about being sealed to the Goshinboku?"

He repressed a sigh. Few things scared him in life, and three near the top of that short list were all temperamental young women with a stubborn streak a mile wide. And all three of them had the holy powers to back it up. He was rather glad that only one of them was still among the living.

"So, back in Sengoku Jidai, the Shikon no Tama was still around. And it was in the care of this priestess, Kikyo..."

**-----**

Matsuro watched amusedly as a multitude of emotions ran over the woman's normally guarded face. Fear, anger, distrust, and, oddly enough, acceptance. He wondered what that was about.

"Ne, kit-chan, I'm starved and your plate's empty," he complained to the dark-haired girl currently rewrapping his wound.

Chame looked between her brother and the woman clutching bloody bandages and decided that it was best to not ask questions. Besides, the wrappings for Mischa's burns were back in the kitchen.

"A hot bowl of chicken soup coming right up," she said with a grin, hopping up.

"Oi, I'm suffering from energy depletion and blood loss, not a cold," he complained to the girl already dashing out of the room.

Mischa was still silent, but her muscles had unfrozen enough for her to curl up against the wall, further away from him, trying to escape from whatever plan she thought Matsuro had in mind.

Distraction provided for unwanted witness, Matsuro gave the anxious woman an open smile. "Just how far would you go to protect your cousin, Meirin Mischando?"

He already knew the answer. A hogosha would protect their ward even if it meant their death. Part of the job requirements seemed to be possessing only a minor attachment to life. And he was aching to find out what would cause someone as attached to life as a wolf normally was to withdraw so far into herself that she didn't care if she lived or died.

"Kino Hachiro isn't stupid enough to think I'm Kagome," she said bluntly.

"Why not? If Shinin does what he normally does, by now he should be thinking you're dead."

"I'm not a miko, and every youkai can sense if someone has holy powers or not. I don't."

"Your dog tags do," he said. "And they'd have to have a lot of power in them to be keeping you human like this."

Mischa said nothing.

"It's the only way I can think of to get him to drop his guard. He won't worry about a battle miko who managed to get herself captured by a flirt. Especially when he has items that can suppress holy magic. She'd just be a normal human, not even able to read auras and ki like she should be able to. You, on the other hand," he said, violet eyes flickering the faintest of gold as he tried to impress upon her the seriousness of his suggestion, "will be in your usual control of your powers. Because, as you say, you don't have holy powers."

She sighed. Kitsune were magicians, and warrior though the other inmate was, it seemed even he could read the power her human form held. Of course, he was also expecting it, as everyone else in her family had a magical nature. "I don't have much control over it. Mostly just on and off, and some control over how much I put out. I never bothered to ask Mother about it, since I was only human once a month."

"You are a complete idiot."

"Says the kitsune who managed to get himself nearly killed by one."

"You're not in any better shape than I am," he shot back.

"Says you."

Dark amber light sparkled around the woman, running quickly over fresh raw burns to leave healed, tanned skin. The burns faded away, and she quickly unwrapped the rest of Chame's work and chucked the bandages across the room with distaste.

"Now who's the only one near death?" she asked weakly, brown eyes staring dazedly at the bemused kitsune. "And I'm still not helping you. You can fix your own messes. I have a miko to protect."

He made a small noise of protest as she stood up. He dropped his head to hide his smile as she sat right back down with a small "oof."

"Maybe once I regain my energy," she mumbled, flopping backwards and falling asleep almost immediately.

"An earth elementalist," he murmured, understanding how she had managed to heal her wounds. They were the nurturers of the elemental kind; growing things, shaping them, healing them. He wasn't quite sure what he had expected of her- he had only sensed that she had power, not that she could actually use it, nor could he tell what element a person controlled just from seeing their energy. He imagined that he could learn that skill, but there were more important things to worry about.

He raised an eyebrow as Chame came rushing back in the room, no food in her hands. "What the hell was all that magic?" she asked him, only noticing that Mischa was asleep, not that she was healed.

He grinned. "We have another healer on our hands. Wake her up and make her heal me too. She already sucked me dry last night and it's going to take forever to get my magic levels back up to where they usually are."

Chame stared at the woman sprawled out on the bed. She hadn't noticed any magic around the woman... She looked closer at the woman's ki. It was almost completely brown, a small sliver of silver running through it to show that she had dormant youkai blood inside her. And then she saw it. The brown of her ki was made up of two different energies- life and magic. She had only seen the one color and assumed her to have no magic. But the brown was a mixture of a dark shade of brown- her life energy, the only energy unmagical beings had- and a dark amber color- her magic.

Combine that with her usual style of dress- entirely in shades of brown; it was no wonder why Chame had thought Mischa had no magic and why people thought she was youkai once she learned how to mask her scent. On the farm, the silver was obvious, but the brown blended in with her clothes, giving her the illusion of having only a demon aura. Now there was no silver unless you knew to look for it, but the browns wove around themselves so well that they were virtually indistinguishable.

Mischa, Chame decided, was, in her own quiet way, rather brilliant. If in a completely unorthodox fashion.

Her brother seemed to have followed his fellow patient's example and fallen back asleep. Sleep was the best healer, provided you couldn't find a miko.

Now what was supposed to keep her from being bored? She sat back down at the table and sulked.

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

Had this been her first experience in seeing dead bodies, Mikomi would have thrown up. Unfortunately, dead bodies were a common occurrence here. But this was something else entirely. None of the dead bodies were strangers. All were wolf youkai, torn to pieces.

It was the fact that the entire population of the rowdy wolf farm was lying dead and dismembered around her that made her sick, not the fact that they were just dead bodies. They had never been _just_ anything.

Three were missing, that she could tell. Kouga, Ayame, and Shinji. And Fukii, but she had taken care of that herself. Nobody who didn't live here would know that they had missed one puppy.

But where were her husband and his parents?

Getting over her nausea, she opened her senses up. Two youkai, further into the compound, near each other, youki levels completely off the charts. And she was surrounded by death. There was nothing else alive here. Nothing.

She ran towards the demons she sensed. One of them had to be a wolf.

Rounding a corner of one of the buildings, she was sent flying as something large and heavy was thrown into her. She nearly blacked out as she hit the ground. The body continued in its half-flight, half-bounce to come to a stop sixty feet away. She didn't get up, merely turned her head to see what- or who- it was.

It was a large white wolf, coat matted with blood, tail torn to ragged pieces, huge chucks of flesh missing where they had been torn out by claws. Her head was gone. Obviously Ayame wouldn't be tricking Kouga into wearing skirts again, Mikomi thought sadly.

She rose into a sitting position to look for the last two combatants. Further away- in the direction Ayame's body had been thrown from, a somewhat smaller wolf had a firm grip on a large blue dragon's neck, sinking his teeth into it deeply.

"Shinji!"

With one final snap of its long neck, the dragon dislodged its unwelcome passenger, and the black wolf went flying to land near Ayame's body. She lurched to her feet to her husband.

His form blurred, changing from wolf to humanoid. His left arm had been torn off, she could literally see all of his ribs- the bones were a bloody red color, and it looked like half of his face had been melted. His one good eye cracked wearily open to watch the human woman kneel down beside him to cradle his head.

"What's going on?" she asked, her voice close to breaking. "I don't understand."

He opened his mouth to speak, but started coughing up blood.

"I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner," she whispered, a faint blue light surround her.

He shook his head faintly, as if to tell her that she shouldn't have come back at all. That nothing was her fault.

"I love you."

He managed to control his coughing to look up at her, his usual half smirk marred by the ruin of the left side of his face.

"I never meant to, but you got to me," she said, smiling faintly, ignoring the twinge on her miko senses that said the dragon was stalking its motionless prey.

One bloody hand reached up to wipe away the tears rolling down her face. "You got to me too," he managed to say. His good eye looked past her, then back at her.

"I know," she told the dying youkai.

His small chuckle turned into another bloody coughing fit.

One last footstep of the dragon, and she could suddenly See again. All the futures, all the pasts, all the presents, all at once, in one final flash of understanding. It was glorious.

"So that's how it is," she said bemusedly.

A deep inhalation of breath as the dragon prepared to breath fire down upon the last living residents of the once lively compound.

The blue glow surrounding the woman blazed, and the entire farm was lit with purple flames of power- the dragon's fire and the miko's cleansing holy power.

The light died, and all was still.

A rustle of wings, and a blue dragon barely clinging to life flew haphazardly away, leaving nothing behind but fire and an empty field where bodies had once lain.

**--- Tokyo, Japan --**

"Who are you looking for?" Fukii asked the teenager strolling through the field, eyes skimming the crowd.

"My coach," he replied.

"What's he look like?"

"That," Souta said, pointing.

A tall brunet was laughing with one of the other adults at the field. Even so far away, Fukii could make out the multiple piercings adorning one ear, and the vivid red scar that cut down his left eye. She could even tell that his eyes were two different colors- the right brown, the left a pale gray. He looked too much like a yakuza member to actually be a teacher.

"Yoshi-sensei!" Souta called out.

The man turned to watch Souta drag Fukii over to him. As they neared him, Fukii could literally feel the power radiating off the older man. The kid had called him sensei, Fukii thought, realizing that soccer was not all he had taught the teenager.

"Hey, kid. I thought you were on vacation."

Souta grinned. "I complained so much that Mom sent me home so that she could have a vacation away from me."

The man laughed. "You're one of a kind, kid. Who's your friend?"

"This is Ki. She's my cousin. I think. I haven't quite gotten the full explanation from her."

"Have so! You're just an idiot who didn't understand the explanation," the redhead shot at the taller boy.

"Well, you get along like relatives," the man said with a grin. "I'm Yukino Kiyoshi. Call me Yoshi, everyone else does. What brings you here?"

Fukii looked puzzled for a second. She had heard a name like that somewhere else... "Souta said he'd teach me soccer."

"No, Kagome told me to tell you about soccer. No way am I teaching you. You'd make me look bad when you don't learn anything," Souta said.

"Only because you'll be a terrible teacher."

"Hey kids, be nice. Don't want people thinking you're having a lovers' tiff," the brunet said with a grin and a wink.

Fukii rolled her eyes and Souta gagged.

"You've got to admit, you look nothing alike."

"We're only distantly related," Fukii said shortly. "It's not like I asked to be dropped off here without any sort of explanation."

"Don't feel obligated to stay," Souta muttered.

Fukii was going to say something back, when a slight itching on her senses distracted her. Something was... off.

"What, no snappy comeback?" Souta asked.

Fukii frowned. "Did you just get the feeling someone walked over your grave?"

Both brunets eyed her oddly. "No," Souta said slowly.

Yoshi's eyes narrowed to study the redhead currently scanning the crowd for the source of the odd assault on her senses.

"Jeez, you're-" Souta broke off, slumping forward into the startled redhead's arms, struggling to breathe.

Yoshi quickly pulled the choking teen away from the girl, using his other hand to force Souta to let go of his throat.

Fukii watched in horrified amazement as the teen continued to fight to breathe, slowly turning blue. And then it hit her- an elementalist was immune to his own element. What she was seeing was impossible. An air user couldn't suffocate any more than a water user could drown. Souta didn't even need to actually breathe to live.

Yoshi swore. "What the hell just happened?"

Souta's eyes rolled to the back of his head and he slumped in the older man's arms. Fukii could hear his lungs completely stop and silently panicked as his heart rate slowed.

"I have no idea, but I'd suggest thinking up something fast," Fukii said calmly, scrounging through Souta's bag for a cell phone.

Yoshi eyed the redhead- who was blatantly ignoring him- and then the crowd- who were somehow not seeing what was happening. He sighed softly as he realized what he would have to do.

"Hello, operator? Could you put me through to the emergency line? I don't have the number." The redhead turned her back on the two, and Yoshi glowed a pale purple color as he used magic to force his student's lungs to continue working.

"Yes, I'm serious. My cousin just stopped breathing and someone's doing CPR, but obviously he's going to need to be seen by a real doctor." Fukii continued to not look at the two humans.

Yoshi frowned as another power pressed against his, trying to force him to stop and to let the boy die. "It's impossible for an air elementalist to suffocate," he whispered.

"You think I don't know that?" He looked up, but the redhead was still on the phone. "Look, this is fucking serious! Either put me through or give me their goddamned number, you ignorant bitch!"

Her body language was entirely all wrong for her speech, but he didn't have the time to be worried about that. Souta's lungs still weren't working on their own- not that it should matter with an air elementalist, but something very wrong was going on- and he'd need a healer to find what was causing the problem.

"Hi, I just got transferred over from the stupidest operator in existence. Could you put me through to the south line?"

Yoshi's eyebrows shot up. She was youkai. A human magician would know to keep watch over another in an emergency, but only a youkai would ask an emergency operator to switch her over to the south line- the one for incidents involving infractions between youkai and humans. Humans knew to ask for the north line. So her statement that she had been dropped off in Tokyo without a word of help was true.

"Soccer field near Jiraiye Park. Higurashi Souta. Air elementalist. Collapsed, suffocating."

The pressure on his mind increased and he was struggling to keep the boy breathing and to keep the other from killing him.

"Yes, damn it, why do you think I called? There's an air master here keeping him breathing, but he's going to need a real healer to find out what could cause it." A pause. "Good, thank you."

Yoshi closed his eyes to focus. A third presence joined, and he realized what was keeping the crowd from seeing them was a massive outpouring of youki from the tiny redhead. And her presence scared off whomever it was who was trying to see Souta dead.

"They said they'd be here soon," she told the brunet.

Souta still wasn't breathing on his own, and his heart rate was falling even faster.

**-----**

"How are they supposed to get it out of me if most people can't even tell I have it?" Kagome asked the hanyou currently 'not' sulking on the roof.

"How the hell should I know?"

"And do you really expect me to believe you're only a hundred and fifty years old when you were born six hundred years ago? What kind of spell could bind a demon to slumber?"

"When it happens to a hanyou, who knows?" he asked bitterly.

"So who else was she talking about?"

"I've already told you, I don't know." Kagome glared, and he added defensively, "Look, I never even met my father, so why do you think I'd care who killed him?"

"I didn't like my father, but I'd still like to know who killed him," Kagome shot back.

"That's because you're stupid."

"And you're an insensitive jerk!"

Demons were obviously all little children in need of a spanking, Kagome thought angrily.

"Try thinking for yourself. What do we know? He's a dragon, because that little shit implied that her father's his brother. You can also tell he's a really old dragon because my father was the Lord of the Western Lands before my brother and all the taiyoukai are nearly invincible, and it would take someone with a hell of a lot of experience to kill a Lord."

"So why would he want the Shikon no Tama if he's already so powerful?"

He shrugged.

"Why do I put up with you?" she asked.

"Because you're stupid."

"You've got all the diplomacy of two-year-old screaming for candy," she said, sticking her tongue out at him.

"Like you're acting any older," he said with a snort.

"Yeah, well, I have an excuse. I keep having all these strangers drop in on me for inexplicable reasons and this is my way of coping. What's your excuse?"

"Tact is for stupid people. Say what you want, when you want, and that way if anybody is stupid enough to like you, you know they like you for you."

Kagome blinked. That was, in some strange Inu-Yasha fashion, deep. If illogical. "I suppose that sort of makes-" She paused, an odd look coming to her face.

"Makes what? Don't just stop mid-sentence," he prodded.

"Mikomi," she whispered, crumpling to the ground.

Inu-Yasha was off the roof and kneeling beside the fallen girl in a flash. "Now's not the time for napping," he said, shaking her gently.

As if his touch had triggered some instinctive defense, pink and blue light surrounded the unconscious woman, and Inu-Yasha pulled back as if he had put his hand on a fire.

"Shit," he cursed. "That's purification energy." The wolf may not have had a problem with dealing with the young miko whenever she got like this, but he sure as hell wasn't taking any chances. He could hear both her heartbeat and her breathing, and both were at a healthy, steady rate, and she didn't smell sick, and with that power flaring like it was, he couldn't get close to her.

He sat as close as he thought was safe and stared at the unconscious woman, willing her to wake up and tell him what the hell had just happened to her and why the hell she was talking about her aunt.

Plus, the sooner she woke up, the sooner he could drag her off to go threaten Yoko into telling him what the hell was going on.


	19. Eighteen: Matters Of The Mind

**Chapter Eighteen: Matters of the Mind**

"_In waking a tiger, use a long stick."_

- Mao Tse-Tung

**-- Elsewhere --**

She stood at the end of an empty road, looking around at the many buildings that dotted an open farm. Wisps of laughter taunted her as a cool autumn wind blew about the deserted buildings.

She was in some sort of dream, but she wasn't sure of anything beyond that.

She followed the drive to the main building, taking in the empty sights, wondering where everyone was.

_:: Lost, miko::_

Her head spun around, looking for the other.

_:: Still as confused as ever, I see. The other finally understood, but the extra years she gained this time did little to help her find the answers. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to know the exact time you were supposed to die, only to come to that time and not die? It's enough to send anyone on a journey of self-discovery, wouldn't you say::_

"What are you saying?" She gave up on finding it. It didn't always take form to speak with her.

_:: Of course, at the time, you didn't know about that particular gift of hers. After all, she was dead. ::_

"You're not making any sense."

_:: This is what's left of the life she found when the life that had ended was given back to her. She couldn't cope with her home anymore, so she came here, looking for someone who could tell her why she hadn't died. She never got around to leaving. ::_

"Who are you talking about?"

_:: Does that make you feel guilty, miko? Knowing that you sent her here, only to have her die again? They all will, you know. You can't change the past. ::_

"You're not making any sense," she repeated. "I don't know who you're talking about, and you can't be alive now and die in the past!"

The being took shape, pale pink light taking on a vaguely humanoid form.

_:: It has already happened. It is happening. It will happen. You still refuse to learn from your mistakes. Accept that they are dead, are dying, and will die, and their souls can find peace on another turn of the Great Wheel. ::_

"Who are they? Who is she? Why do you keep showing up and telling me loads of mystic nothingness?" She asked angrily.

_:: Souls have no names, miko. You merely recognize the other's presence. I know not what you call them, nor would I be allowed to call them by name if I knew. Names have power. Especially here. ::_

"So what do you thinking I'm supposed to be doing that I'm not?"

_:: Take threats against your life more seriously. There isn't another after you. ::_

"And what should I do about 'them'?"

_:: They are taking slightly better care of themselves than you could. Not that it will matter much longer. There are plans within plans, and only one direction to go. Forward. ::_

"You're seriously pissing me off. Why do you bother showing up if you're just going to spout nonsense?"

_:: Why _do_ I bother::_ The other asked, one hand tapping its chin thoughtfully. _:: You are completely ungrateful for any help or advice I give you, and you have yet to remember the way things were, or even realize there was another time, and yet I continue to come to you and warn you that you are being your usual obtuse human self. Yes, why do I bother::_

She wasn't entirely sure if it was asking her or itself. So she kept silent.

_:: Maybe because you are the only chance I have, you stupid little idiot::_ The other yelled, balling its hands up into fists.

She 'eep'ed at the sudden outburst and shrank away from the suddenly angry other.

_:: You just lost one of the few people who understood what was going on and you haven't the decency to know that she is gone! Why should I bother continuing to help you, when you cannot even take the time to find the people who can help you? Stop sitting there looking stupid, go find him and kill him before he realizes just what exactly it is you have::_

"How am I supposed to find these people if you can't even tell me who they are?" She yelled back at the other. "Either quit talking in circles or leave me the hell alone!"

_:: Very well then. Though you would be wise to realize you are still lost. ::_ The other disappeared, and she was again left alone on the deserted farm.

**-- Mid Afternoon, May 22, Tokyo, Japan --**

Something had gotten by her wards. It was the only thing she could think of that could explain the fact that the body on the bed was completely devoid of anything remotely resembling a spirit. Sure, the woman was breathing, and her heart was pumping, and she even had this weird muscle spasm in her right hand, but her _spirit_ was gone. There was nothing there but a lifeless doll.

Something had gotten by her wards and taken away the tormented woman's _mind_.

Chame was livid. She was a master at magic. Nothing could get by those wards. Nothing but a magician of her caliber or better, and even among the genko, she was considered a prodigy. And some sneak had stolen her human! Hanyou. Person. Or whatever. Even Mischa seemed confused as to who she was.

"Wake up now," she ordered the other occupant of the room.

"Unless you are a beautiful blonde woman wearing nothing and bringing me breakfast in bed, no."

"I can do that," she said, referring to her shapeshifting abilities, "but we have a problem."

"What's that?" he drawled out.

"Musha's spirit just disappeared."

Amethyst eyes snapped open and he sat up. Chame noted that in the seriousness of the situation, he didn't bother showing the pain from his wound. "Could you repeat that?"

"She's still alive, but her spirit seems to have disappeared."

Matsuro eyed the still form on the other bed. The brown ki was gone, as was the dark amber of her magic, and as he watched, the tiny sliver of silver youki disappeared as well. An empty shell.

He blinked, not understanding what had just happened. "Did you forget wards?"

"No I didn't. And nothing has triggered them either. So either we're dealing with someone with power akin to a taiyoukai's or... I don't know, it was already within my wards."

"The only things inside your wards are us," he pointed out.

They exchanged looks of horror.

"No way," Chame said in disbelief.

"It's either that or a taiyoukai, and they don't care _that_ much about her."

"Just how big of a mess did I walk into?" She hissed out angrily.

"I've been asking myself that for days." Matsuro stretched himself out across the bed again and closed his eyes. "Wake me up if anything changes."

What she wouldn't give for a healer to speed up the older kitsune's healing process. He was still pretty much empty of anything remotely resembling magic- either elemental or the inherent kitsune magic- which meant he had none of a youkai's usual extra energy that could be spent on speed-healing.

He definitely needed lessons in elemental control. Where the hell had he been that no one would think to teach him it?

It had to be someplace that didn't want another fire elementalist.

And what had happened to the extra magic that Kage had drawn out of him? If she had really used all of it against him, he would have been dead. She would have to go back to look. She checked her wards again- it was still possible someone had snuck in them to steal Mischa's mind- and wrote a note saying where she was going, in case Matsuro decided to wake up before she came back.

At least she wasn't bored anymore.

**-- Elsewhere --**

Wind whipped about him as he stood in the open field. He knew this wasn't real- that he was actually in Tokyo with his sensei and the redheaded girl. But somehow, this place was real too- he could feel the air, smell the tall grass, hear the rustle of wildlife hidden in the grass around him.

"You're as lost as I am, aren't you?"

He turned around to see a woman sitting cross-legged on a large flat rock he was sure hadn't been there before.

"Sis?"

She gave a short, bitter bark of laughter. "Do I look like her?"

Right haircut, right hair color, same silly priestess outfit, even the right **face**. But those dark eyes weren't right- they were sad and lonely and bitter and not at all like his sister's open, friendly stormy blue. And the body language was much too closed off for her to be his sister. And as he watched, the gi darkened from white to a dark brown, and the hakama faded from blue to gray, and a silver chain appeared resting around her neck.

"Funny, you never looked like her before," he mused. "And you don't look much like you either."

"Consider it a curse," she sad simply. "All the women in our family look exactly alike, provided they're entirely human."

Blink. Blink.

"You're... not human?"

"Hanyou. It's why Mother never had any family pictures to show you."

Blink. Blink. Hanyou? She looked human enough now...

"I _am_ human now."

Had he spoken aloud?

"Body language is easy to read when it's the first form of communication you could use." She fingered the silver chain around her neck. "This necklace has completely sealed away my demon powers."

If this was how she looked human, and who he usually saw was how she looked hanyou... "So if you're only human right now, can you be only youkai as well?"

She sighed. "In a way. But the human mind isn't equipped to handle completely youkai blood, so hanyou... go berserk when they become only youkai. They're called rogues, and they either end up being killed or getting sealed like me."

He sat down on the rock beside her. Sealed. That meant she had gone berserk. But she was... well, no, she had never been normal. But if she had been berserk, did that mean...? "So were you the one who rescued me?"

"So I'm told."

"So where are we?" The sky, he noticed, was completely cloudless. And rather sunny, for all that there didn't appear to be a sun in the sky.

She shrugged. "I _was_ asleep. Probably still am, but this is more real than a dream. You?"

"The last thing I really remember is not being able to breathe, and sensei pulling me off of that redheaded psychopath your mother dropped off. It's kind of fuzzy after that."

It was her turn to blink blankly. "Redheaded psychopath? Short kid with reddish-orange hair to her shoulder and eyes too blue to be human?"

"Complete psychopath. Practically broke my arm."

"She doesn't like humans much. Not many youkai do. If Kyo is with her, he'll keep her from just leaving you there."

It was a silent understanding that the redhead really was his cousin of some kind, through the woman sitting beside him.

But that wasn't really what he was interested in knowing. "So we're unconscious, but not dreaming? Are we even seeing the same thing?"

"Big grassy field that goes on forever?"

"Yeah."

"Then yes. Did anything odd happen before you started choking?"

Her question reminded him of something. "I shouldn't be able to suffocate. Sensei said an air-user couldn't suffocate anymore than a fire-user could get burned by sticking a hand on a hot stove."

"There are youkai with the ability to turn your magic against you." A pause. "You know about youkai?"

"Yeah. Doesn't most of the magical community?"

"Actually, most human magicians don't really believe in youkai. Unless they have holy powers like your sister."

He shrugged. "Sensei says air-users are too lazy to worry about thinking people are telling lies. So he says to just accept everything as the truth until proven otherwise. But not to act upon anything that hasn't been proven."

Plus the air around a person felt different when they told a lie, so air-users never bothered to tell the other that they could see through the lies. Better to let them assume the air-user was stupid and trick them into revealing themselves than to speak too soon and screw up well-laid plans.

"Sounds like an idiot."

"Actually, he's a Buddhist."

She snorted in amusement. He could tell she thought there wasn't a difference.

"You're more talkative than normal."

"My demon blood makes me practically mute. It's in remission."

"That makes no sense."

"Life generally doesn't. Figured out whose mind we're in yet?"

"Well, there's not enough naked girls for it to be mine," he mused.

She groaned at the joke.

"And this isn't your mind either," he continued.

"Why do you say that?"

"It's too sunny."

"I do have other moods besides gloomy."

"News to me," he said. "I don't think we're in a mind at all. I think this is a holding cell for the spirit. You suppose someone's trying to kill us?"

She thought it over. "They're certainly trying to kill someone," she agreed.

**-- Mid Afternoon, Tokyo, Japan --**

A presence was still intruding on his thoughts and he was having trouble keeping it from winning. But again, the wolf drew its attention to herself and it withdrew. He wondered what had the other so scared of the young youkai. He'd met fast food scarier than her.

"His pulse has stabilized," the redheaded wolf told the exhausted human.

He cracked a brown eye open blearily to tell her, "It's impossible for an air-user to suffocate." He didn't bother to thank her for the help against the intruder- he knew from experience that gratitude was an acknowledgement of debt, and he had no urge to admit to owing anything to the young redhead.

"You keep saying that like it's going to make him start breathing again." He could tell from her smirk that she knew the reason behind his act of obliviousness to her help. He wondered how long they would have to silently dance around the issue.

The two were sitting in a relatively unfurnished waiting room. Fukii could smell fresh paint and figured they had only just recently finished the job and the paint was still too wet for them to safely move the good furniture in.

A bored-looking blonde manned the desk where they had asked about the young human. Fukii knew she was a bird youkai who had had shrimp teriyaki for lunch and liked floral shampoo. Yoshi knew she was youkai, liked Madonna, and thought humans were better dead than alive. The bird youkai just wondered what a wolf pup was doing wandering around with a human dressed like a gangster. And why she was asking about another human.

"You've got better hearing than I expected."

Fukii shrugged. "I have my ears so fine-tuned I can hear a fly _breathe_ three rooms away." There was no pride in the statement, merely simple truth.

"Should I ask why you have that sense honed so well?" Yoshi asked with a grin.

"Because I'm nosy as hell," she said bluntly.

"Souta said you were his cousin. I know he's human, and I'm pretty sure you're full-blooded youkai, so I'm wondering what the story is behind that."

The blonde's ears perked at the mention of a human being called family by a youkai.

"We have a mutual relative."

"Ah. Shan-san, I assume?"

The blonde sighed softly. There weren't too many hanyou going around openly, so she would never be able to find out who this relative was- the wolf hadn't given her name, and she already knew there were no hanyou with a family name of Higurashi. Shan was an uncommon name, but she couldn't think of anyone with that name. She started pulling up files of previous patients to look around.

Fukii didn't bother answering the question, but both understood his words were merely formality. After all, there was no one else in the family. "So it's simplified to just cousin. Are you the one who was teaching him?"

"Not very well, it looks like," Yoshi said, rubbing the back of his head. "I'm self-taught myself, so there are a lot of holes in both our educations."

"But it's still pretty amazing to see that he's a somewhat trained elementalist without even his miko sister catching on to the fact."

"If there's one thing I can teach, it's how to shield your power from even the sharpest of eyes. You didn't even know for sure until I started using it, did you?"

"I guessed it."

"Coming from someone as young as you are, it was a rather brilliant move."

"I'm not as young as I look," she said grumpily.

"No, I'd imagine not. How did you manage that crowd control, anyway? He'd just collapsed and you were already putting out waves to keep people from seeing us."

"I spent a couple of years swapping ideas with a kitsune. He thought if it was possible for sensitive humans to be attracted to youki, it was just as possible to deter that attention. Admittedly, kitsune have suggestion to do that sort of thing, but it seems that youki can be manipulated into doing it as well."

"You just guessed at this as this was happening?" he said disbelievingly.

She gave him a flat look. "Well panicking doesn't help anything. It's you humans that are virtually helpless when caught in unexpected situations. We youkai think on our feet."

"You have such a wonderful opinion of humans. Keep going along those lines and you'll be saying that humans don't think at all."

She rolled her eyes. "You humans are too sensitive. Don't read so far into my words."

"So why do you even care about him?"

"Because they asked me to." Fukii crossed her arms over her chest, staring intently at the poster on the wall in front of her.

"You're going to have to go into more detail than that."

"His sister and aunt. I try to do as a miko requests. You never know when she'll decide to purify you for being rude."

The bird youkai almost chirped in surprise. Fukii's head spun around to stare at the eavesdropping woman, and the blonde inched further away. Even if she wasn't the quickest at catching on to things, she was smart enough to add wolf and miko to realize just who was sitting in her waiting room, who she was related to, and who the teenager hooked up to a respirator was related to, and what any of them would do if the boy died. And maybe even if he didn't- the Lady of the Northern Lands was even more prone to violence when family was injured than most wolf youkai, and they were an already overly-protective race.

Fukii smirked.

"That's ridiculous," Yoshi said with a snort, oblivious to the interchange between the two youkai. "Priestesses aren't like that."

"Yeah, well, the younger one seemed the ridiculous sort. She shooed me off before I could get a complete take on her, but she's definitely volatile. And if she asks me to watch out for her brother, I'll do it just so she won't get angry with me."

"Well," he said, crossing his arms behind his head and he leaned back and closed his eyes, returning to the task of shielding his mind from the presence that was again testing his defenses, "you're doing a marvelous job at that."

"Oi, I'm not a magician of any kind! I handle physical reality. And you seemed to be handling it well while I got real help."

"Don't wrench yourself out of joint trying to compliment me," he groused.

"The miko is not going to be happy," the redhead mourned. "She said something about only getting him back, and here he is in trouble again."

"At least he's still alive," Yoshi said, unsure of whether he was reassuring himself or the girl in the chair beside him.

"There are worse things out there than death."

"You're telling me."

Fukii eyed the brunet suspiciously, but didn't comment.

The bird youkai wondered when they were going to leave. Neither seemed to have the most stable personality, and they had only just finished rebuilding from the last time a youkai and an elementalist had had to share the sitting room. Even if they were here for the same person, everyone knew youkai didn't get along well with humans, no matter how friendly either individual was.

She silently prayed for the kid they had brought in with them to start breathing on his own just so they would go away, since neither seemed to care about such a thing as visiting hours.

**-- Hiroshima, Japan -- **

She was sitting at a low table, a game of shogi still in progress before her. They had been playing the same game for three years now, laying traps and dancing around the other's traps, and the end didn't appear to be in sight. He made a mental note to visit the beautiful youkai more often, if only so one of them could finally win the game.

She looked up from the board and a smile spread across her face. "Yoko-sama."

He made a face. "Hizashi, you are the Lady of the Eastern Lands. You do not call me Yoko-sama. You call me Yoko. We are equals."

"Apologies, Yoko-sama," she replied. "One will try to remember that."

He sighed as he sat down on the other side of the low table. The young youkai was much too timid for her own good. It was a wonder she had managed to rule the East for a decade, much less the sixty she had under her belt. Though she was an excellent strategist, judging by the fact she had yet to lose the shogi game to the older youkai.

Lady Hizashi of the Eastern Lands was a beautiful youkai, no doubt about that. Exotic, even as youkai went, she was a study in scarlet. She had brilliant, wavy red hair that cascaded down much of her back as if it were liquid fire, and burnt orange eyes that, had she any temper to speak of, could ignite to a true blazing ruby red.

A red-orange teardrop-shaped marking in the middle of her forehead proclaimed her the taiyoukai of the East, and the three blue stripes across each cheek was the mark of power that had caused the other three taiyoukai to name her Lady of the Eastern Lands instead of searching out an older, more experienced youkai. Hizashi, though rather on the timid side, packed a powerhouse of a magical punch that could keep all but the oldest of youkai at bay. Yoko wasn't scared of that threat in the least.

It was the wings that set her apart from even the other phoenixes. There was many a winged angel in human art, but none came close to portraying the double set of feathered crimson wings that protruded from the Lady of the Eastern Land's back. No other phoenix could lay claim to having a second set of wings. He was appreciative of the fact that her wings made her wear a sleeveless, backless pale blue dress held up by an intricately carved gold choker around her neck. It suited her figure perfectly.

The firebird lived up to her name in appearance, if not in temperament. He had never met such a self-effacing youkai before. Even the North's hanyou was more outspoken than her. Possibly.

"What did Yoko-sama come for? It is still this one's move," she said, referring to the game.

"Do you remember that uproar about the Meirin family at the turn of the century? When all but the eldest son and his eldest were killed by assassins?"

"Yes," she answered. "But why does Yoko-sama ask about it?"

"It is happening again. The miko took out the wrong demons that time, and they are trying again to gain control of the family's heritage."

Hizashi's feathers ruffled nervously. "One thought that only the family can sense its presence now."

"Unfortunately, they seem to be taking up with youkai more frequently."

"Taking up?" She repeated.

Yoko repressed a sigh. She had been hopelessly sheltered. "You do remember Kouga tricking a miko into marrying his youngest, yes?"

"Ano…" she stalled. He waited. "Ah."

It was an interesting thing, watching a phoenix blush. He resolved to set the poor innocent straight, and should the lessons happen to cause her to blush, all the better.

Best wait for things to settle down before working on plans to do that.

"Does Yoko-sama mean that all of the North's wolves can sense the jewel now?"

"It would appear so. And the wolf hanyou is only the latest in a series of mishaps. Though it seems the youkai after the jewel cannot actually sense its presence, merely feel that someone of the blood has it. They are already making plans to kill them all."

"But does that not mean the jewel is destroyed as well?"

Yoko looked grave. "It has come to my attention that they have an ally who can gain the abilities of those he kills."

"The jewel would become his if he killed the entire Meirin family?" she asked hesitantly.

"I believe so. And I have a feeling he is after much more than one cursed jewel. Much, much more."

Hizashi looked worried. "Does Yoko-sama mean-"

He cut her off. "It is very possible he can succeed as well."

"Then should this one-"

"There is little to do about that particular problem right now. Though you might want to consider recharging the wards you have here. I managed to teleport in, yes?"

"Yoko-sama, this one completed that last night." She returned her gaze to the board, picked a piece up and snapped it down three spaces away. She looked up from the board, orange eyes darker than normal. "The wards are keyed for taiyoukai entrance, otherwise Yoko-sama would have been teleported in such small pieces that there would not be enough of him left to regenerate."

Experienced eyes took in the piece and the new arrangement of the board. She had won. And some of the pieces were still in the same spots they had been in during the early months of their game. A long drawn-out trap, meant to catch a kitsune at his own game.

Perhaps there was steel hidden under all those soft feathers after all. He grinned.

**-- Elsewhere ---**

The mind is a simple, yet surprisingly complex, work of art. It can be violent, it can be calm, it can be sent on drug-induced highs, or it can be captured and bottled and sold as perfume.

Maybe not sold as perfume. But certainly captured and caged. But even in your own mind, perhaps _especially_ in your own mind, there is something that rails against this fact. Can one truly capture the essence of the mind, of the spirit, or does one merely capture the consciousness and leave everything else that could be there free of consciousness's imposed rules?

He would never learn this lesson. Immortality, after all, is quite different from eternity, and death is never far from one who plays with fire.

And it was with this in mind that the breach was traversed and his mind became someone else's playground.

Though his mind had always been a war zone. This was, perhaps, merely the clean-up crew. It came of no surprise that he had already bound two and was working on a third. Though the presence was surprised to find another intruder.

A short battle of wills took place, each trying to determine the other's reason for being there, until one was at last declared victor. The man remained oblivious to their presence until one made itself known.

"Still up to your sadistic mind games, I see."

The man jumped, startled upon the intrusion into his mind, and whirled on the other. "You! But you're-"

Mocking cold eyes. "Ever heard of multiple personality disorder?"

"What has that got to do with anything?"

A feral grin, a promise of death. "I'm personality number two."

Realization hit him and he backed away from the other.

For each step backwards, two steps forward. "And I'm very unhappy with you."

He was cornered in his own mind. A novel and thoroughly unwelcome event for one who had always been on the offensive side of mind manipulation. There was still some knowledge of defense, however. "This is my mind, and you can't do anything to me here."

The grin spread further. "Oh, but that is where you are wrong."

The second presence took shape behind him and a clawed hand shot forward through the man's torso, forcing his heart outside of his own body, where the first destroyed it with a simple thought. Teamwork, though rarer than a rooster's egg, was possible for them.

"But you're too dead to learn from that lesson. Ahou."

The first nodded acknowledgement of the kill to the second and both disappeared down little-used paths to their own cages.

**--Late Afternoon, Tokyo, Japan --**

Somewhere in the waking world of Tokyo, a dark-haired man with blonde and red highlights wearing a traditional kimono jerked upright as if having been prodded in the back and slumped down, face already going gray with death.

There would be no movement in the meditation hall until a young lost college student came in to ask for directions to the financial district. She wouldn't be getting the directions.

She didn't notice the dark-haired child peeking in around her, looking for death.

The woman was remarkably calm for someone who had just found a dead body. She grabbed the telephone off the desk and quickly dialed a number. "Hello, operator? I-"

The child grabbed the woman's free hand, causing the woman to break off and stare down at the young intruder. Dark brown locked with aquamarine, and she couldn't pull herself out of the child's unnaturally sharp gaze.

The phone dropped to the counter as dark green light surrounded the two, and the woman slumped lifelessly backwards. The girl checked to make sure the woman was still breathing. Seeing that she was, she picked up the dropped phone. "Sorry, I dropped the phone," she said using the unconscious woman's voice. "Could you get me the north line?"

She stared quizzically at the dead man, wondering at how he had died.

There had to be a connection she was missing.

**-----**

She showed no signs of waking any time soon, and the freaky glow of purification powers had finally faded away, so Inu-Yasha placed one cautious hand on the woman's arm, testing to see that her power was under control. Feeling no sting of holy magic, he released the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.

"The things I have to do for you people," he complained to the unconscious girl as he picked her up to bring her inside. "You better be grateful for this."

She didn't reply. He hadn't expected one.

Pushing the door to the house opened, he wondered what the kitsune were up to. Not that he cared. Kitsune poked into other people's business too much, and for their own self-interested reasons. He had already had to chase Matsuro off from this family once, and if he had to do it again, he would make sure the other stayed dead. The kit wasn't as bad, just immature. Between the two of them, they had managed to teach a wolf hanyou how to talk, though the miko in his arms had done a much better job of it.

He set her down on the sofa. "Just what the hell happened to knock you out?"

"That, little brother, is a matter of grave concern."

Damn it, the bastard had snuck up on him again. Sesshoumaru stood in the doorway behind him, refraining from entering a miko's private property, but definitely close enough that he should have been able to smell him coming.

"What the hell do you want?"

Sesshoumaru ignored the question. "What happened to the miko?"

"She mumbled something about Mikomi and passed out."

Sesshoumaru looked disinterested in the information and told his brother, "The Lord of the Southern Lands visited. He seems to be of the opinion that you have gotten on the wrong side of a dragon."

Inu-Yasha crossed his arms across his chest, staring angrily at his brother. "They don't have any good sides. That little shit Ayame showed up and had the nerve to tell me that at least I had a brother who wanted my help, not my identity, and that her father died in 1891. I am so fucking sick of her. And you keep getting in the way of me killing her!"

Sesshoumaru ignored his brother's angry accusation. "If she does not think he is her father, who does the little dragon think he is?"

"Judging by the fact she brought you up, I'd guess his brother. But he doesn't have any that I know of, so who knows what the hell she's thinking."

If Inu-Yasha hadn't known his half-brother was incapable of feeling, much less showing, emotions, he would have thought the brief flicker in his brother's eyes was one of... fear.

"Is that so?" the taiyoukai murmured. "Perhaps this Sesshoumaru should speak with the little dragon herself about this."

Before Inu-Yasha had a chance to ask his brother what he was talking about- Kino didn't have a brother, just a crap load of sons- the taller demon disappeared in a flash of white light.

"Goddamned bastard, what the hell did he want? He ought to know Kino's after the jewel, so why did he come here to tell me that damned fox thought Kino is after it?"

None of it made sense.

"Oi, girl, wake the hell up so I can go threaten bodily harm on the lords. They've got you in deeper shit than I thought."

Kagome didn't look to be waking any time soon.

Maybe the kitchen had a good stock of ramen for him to eat while he waited.


	20. Nineteen: The Summons

**Chapter Nineteen: The Summons**

_"No man is an Island, entire of it self; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee."_

-John Donne

**-- Elsewhere --**

It was right. She was still lost. All she knew was that the farm was the beginning and end of someone else's mind. Or the leftovers of what used to be one, anyway. The empty landscape looked like it would be rather homey if there were actually people to populate it. And it struck her that she knew someone who lived on a farm. Which?

The other had given her clues. She came here and found a new life. She had sent her here, only for her to die again.

_"I need to return to the farm. Tell Mischando I love her the next time you see her."_

"She can't have died," she whispered. "I just saw her this morning."

There was a feather light brush of lips across her forehead and the farm was lit up by a blazing flash of blue.

**---**

"_Come here, boy."_

"Yes, Father?"

"That last fight with the dragon has taken too much out of me. It was all I could do to seal him, and now I have no strength to live. You must be the leader of our lands now, Sesshoumaru."

"You have not died yet, Father."

"Look after your brother. I know you hate him, but someday, you will understand why I did what I did."

"…"

"One last gift for you. My sword. Your brother will get the other one. Maybe… you will… get along… then."

"… Sayonara, Father."

**---**

"_Stay there and let me protect you!"_

**---**

"_I sense a great disturbance gathering over this building. If you would be willing to let me stay the night, I can rid you of this evil presence."_

"I can't believe these idiots actually fall for that shit."

"I'd tell him not to do that, but I want to sleep inside for once. And hot food sounds heavenly."

**---**

"_He's my brother. If you take the shard out, he'll die."_

"Sango-chan, he already died. The shard is just directing his dead body."

"No, Kohaku's in there, I know he is."

"And would you really want him to remember attacking you? Just kill him already and stop letting Naraku manipulate him. I thought demon slayers were supposed to be strong, but you aren't even brave enough to put your own brother out of his misery."

"Osuwari."

**---**

"_I will be the one who kills you, copy. You will not get killed before then."_

"It does not matter to me. Dead is dead."

"Death, copy, can be cheated."

**---**

"_I want to go home."_

"This shrine is your home now."

"No it's not. This place is a prison."

"… You sense it too?"

**---**

"_Well then why don't we make a deal? That way you won't have a debt, you'll have a promise to keep."_

"What's that?"

"You look out for my family either until the bloodline dies out or you die, and I'll release you from the tree."

"Not forever."

"How long did your brother say you had been bound to the Goshinboku?"

"Four hundred something years."

"Then why not watch over the family for that long?"

**---**

"_You look upset, red."_

"Fuck off."

Your mother's great beauty is matched only by her venomous way with words."

"I said fuck off, dragon."

"Would you like me to kill her for you? It would make things easier. And I only ask for the smallest of favors in return."

"I'm warning you for the last time, leave me the hell alone or..."

"Hiding behind your family's power, boy? That may be the safe way, but you have to eat your own pride to follow up on your words."

"…"

"I will have you, one way or another."

**---**

"_Brother, don't look so sad. You still have your son."_

"I'd rather have her back than that squalling thing."

"A child is a marvelous creation, brother. Be happy that you still have something of her left."

"Don't even try to make me feel upset that your husband doesn't know his dick from his thumb. What did you expect from an arranged marriage?"

"At least you found someone to love."

"Shut up."

"At least you still have some of that love to cling to."

"Shut up."

"Forget that she died in labor. That child is the physical proof of your love, of her love for you."

"Shut. Up."

"What do I have? Married off to a simpleton to gain his family's money. And proof that because of this marriage, I will never have the greatest gift the gods can give a woman."

"Little sister, if you want a child so badly, go find a man."

"And be stoned when they find out I'm pregnant? Everyone knows he can't perform!"

"Then take mine."

"Brother, do you really want to give up the only thing you have left of hers."

"… No."

"Then take him. Heal your pain through raising him. You still have your wife- in your heart and in him."

"Rei..."

"Leave me be, Akira."

**---**

"_You know, it's illegal for beautiful women to look so sad."_

"…"

"Want to talk about it? I make a good listener."

"Probably because your pain is written all over your face as obviously as mine is."

"I should've known a Japanese lady in China would have a stronger backbone than one would in Japan."

"We come here to escape our memories and we build up walls to ease the pain. Those walls let us stand alone and unbending on foreign soil. Is it the same for you, Irishman?"

**---**

"_Untrained though I may be, demon, I have enough power to have my revenge upon my brother's murderers."_

"The only way for you to do that, little girl, is to sacrifice yourself to your powers."

"If I do not kill you, you will kill me. Either way, the result is the same. I die. I plan on doing something constructive with my finals minutes. Taking you with me to hell!"

**---**

"_You ever wonder why we never have any relatives, little sister? It's just you, me, and Father."_

"Mother died birthing me and she and Father were only children. Why would we have relatives?"

"You haven't looked at the family records?"

"You're the priestess-in-training, not me."

"But..."

"Yes?"

"Never mind."

**---**

"_Let's make a deal, miko. You marry my youngest, and I'll help you find the answers you're looking for."_

"You don't even know the questions."

"That doesn't matter."

"No, I'd imagine it wouldn't."

**---**

"_Hey, Dad, look! There's somebody whimpering over there."_

"He's fucked around at the wrong time this time. Kit, you stay here."

"I'm coming too! I heard her first!"

"This isn't a game."

"You said life is the greatest game. It's my turn to make a move."

**---**

"_Aren't they supposed to talk? That mutt does all the time."_

"Look at its throat. It's lucky it didn't die. It'll take years for that to heal."

"..."

"That's a pretty mean glare it's got for such a little piece of shit."

"Want to play, half-breed? We promise not to rough you up any worse than he did."

"..."

"Oi, kisama, get the hell away from her! I found her first, assholes!"

"Isn't that the South's-"

"Yeah. Her father'd kill us if we touched her. Come on, let's go. She can keep it."

"Consider yourself lucky, mutt."

"You gotta learn to speak up for yourself. I'm not staying here forever, you know."

"..."

"Oh, don't give me that look."

---

"_I'll fucking kill him."_

"Maa, maa, no need to be so angry."

"She's his fucking wife."

"That makes her his to do with as he pleases."

"She was fucking pregnant! She's lucky she didn't lose the kid!"

"Yes, the miko did show up in time, didn't she?"

"I'm not giving him the chance to do it again- to either her or her children."

"What do you plan to do about it? He's human, and should he die, there will be an investigation."

"Ninety percent of murders are never solved. And they won't expect a car accident to be homicide."

"You're really serious, aren't you?"

"I made a promise."

"He's been dead for decades, you know."

"But I'm still alive. And I promised him I'd look out for them."

"You're doing such a wonderful job of it too."

"Fuck off, they're fucking magnets for fucking accidents and I can't fucking save them every fucking time!"

"Ah, touchy subject for you, is it?"

"..."

"Good luck, then. Not that you'd need it to kill a human."

**---**

"_I don't miss him."_

"Good, that makes two of us."

"But Mama does."

"Your mother could never see his faults."

"He hurt her."

"Yes, he did."

"I don't ever want to be like that."

"Would you like me to teach you how to protect yourself?"

"Really? You could, Aunt Mikomi?"

"If you're strong enough."

**---**

"_Amazing how quickly the wounds heal, the scars fade."_

"What are you talking about?"

"It does not work on the first of the month either. For all that the mind has no will to live, the body continues to hold it captive."

"... What do you want?"

"If I gave you something to live for, would you stop?"

"..."

"Maybe they let you get away with that behavior, or maybe they were all too stupid to catch on, but hell if I am going to lose anyone on my watch to suicide."

"And what would you have me live for?"

"To begin with, revenge. All I ask in return is that you live, and that you keep one eye, preferably two, on this junior high student."

"She's-"

"The resemblance is uncanny, no?"

**---**

"_Ne, brat, who's that hottie over there?"_

"Eh? You mean my coach?"

"The one with the scar across his eye."

"That's my coach. Ew, you think he's cute?"

"Cousin, your taste in men leaves much to be desired."

"You don't have any at all, so hush."

"I can't believe my sister has a crush on my soccer coach."

"I just think he's cute, is all."

"Riiiight."

**---**

"_Your stance is all wrong, gaki."_

"Like you could do any better."

"..."

"Ha, told you."

"Your feet are too close together, they need to be shoulder-width apart to maintain proper balance. Your right foot is angled improperly, I know six different ways to make you fall over without resorting to just kicking that leg. You're holding your elbows too stiffly- an opponent could catch you by the arm and break it easily."

"..."

"What?"

"I'm sorry, I could've sworn I heard you talking in polysyllabic words in multiple complete sentences."

"..."

"Much better. So, the stance should be more like this?"

"Yes."

"So you really do know something besides how to stare people into confessing their sins. Spar with me."

"..."

"Please?"

"Fine. But just this once."

"Right, right, whatever."

**---**

"_She isn't one to kill lightly. You're in no danger of being purified by her."_

"Her guard is a different story. Should she even get wind of the fact I'm watching the two of them for you, she'll kill me, no questions asked. Or at least try to."

"That's been taken care of."

"That was your doing?"

"I had hoped they would kill her, but this is working out just as well. Though I would like to know how she is keeping enough control of her mind to hunt someone down, not to mention why she chose Shinin for her prey."

"Maybe she knew him back when he was still allowed in the Northern Lands. And speaking of the lands and their lords, my grandfather found me the other day."

"Ah yes, the eldest of the remaining lords of Japan. Tell me, did he ever find the person behind the destruction of the East's family?"

"You would know that better than I."

"And what did he want?"

"Just the knowledge that I was still alive, apparently. Though he came to me later for help in discovering who's behind the attacks on your... ally."

"It should be interesting to see his reaction to the answer."

"The wolf called in reinforcements before she went rogue."

"The next time I tell you not to call in because you're being an insubordinate jackass, ignore me when it's information that important."

"I take threats very seriously, _sir_, and I will not act against them unless there is no reason for you to punish me for doing so. Please do not think I'm stupid."

**---**

They weren't her memories. They were what was left of one woman's ability to see the future- and apparently the past as well.

"Sayonara, Mikomi-obasan," she whispered to the empty farm.

_:: Names have power. Especially here. ::_

And she was flung away from the remains of her aunt's mind.

**-- Late Afternoon, May 22, Tokyo, Japan --**

A green-haired, dragon-tailed girl was crouched on a large mahogany desk, staring intently into eyes as crimson as hers.

"You promised me I could keep him when you were done with him," the girl said with an angry glare.

He leaned a little backwards to be able to see something besides the angry face of the young girl. "I _am_ done with him."

She leaned forward, still angry, poking one clawed finger into the tall man's chest. "But you let him leave! He's mine now, you're not supposed to give him back to them."

"So go get him and stop whining."

She leaned back some, glare changing to a pout. "I'm not stupid. You sent the Kagami out after him, and you only do that when you don't want people to know how someone died."

"Then you should find him before the Kagami does."

"The Kagami already found him."

"Then quit complaining."

"Someone stopped the Kagami."

"You really are keeping track of him, aren't you? I'm only going to warn you one time about becoming obsessed with mortals, child."

"Whatever." She hopped off the desk and flounced out of the room.

Shortly after, a tall brunet poked his head through the door.

"Kino-sama, I just got the oddest report from the tracker on Shinin-sama. It seems he's been killed."

The man turned to look sharply at the newcomer. "I told them to wait until Friday."

"Well..." the man stalled, pulling out a folder filled with papers.

"What is it?"

"It wasn't them. They've been working all day. And it's not their style either. Nobody knows how he died- the girl who called it in said that if he had been human, she would say he'd had a heart attack."

"Who called it in?"

"She didn't give her name and left before the team showed up to take the body. There was a human there as well- seems she walked in on whatever happened and fainted. Her memory was already erased, so she can't tell us what happened either."

"Get someone looking into it. And find out what he was doing."

The man shuffled through the sheaf of papers in the folder. "Judging from these photos, it looks like a set up for meditation. Isn't- wasn't Shinin-sama a telepath?"

"No. But he did have powers of the mind. Find out if anyone else collapsed around that same time."

"Yes, sir."

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

He _had_ teleported himself to the main building. But while the location was correct, the landscape was not.

What was once a thriving rice farm was now a vast wasteland of char. Ordinary fire could not cause this much damage, and in so little an amount of time. There had been either a youkai here or a human magician, and the latter was highly unlikely.

He could smell a vast amount of death, but the fire- and the holy energy still fading away- had obviously destroyed the remains.

The last of the families of the four lands had been reduced to similar numbers as the other three. He wondered who had managed to survive the destruction, and who had been the cause.

There were things they had to do. A meeting was in order.

His eyes blazed red as his form changed, and he raised his great head to the slowly darkening sky and howled.

**-- Elsewhere --**

The two were not content with their prison, but so far they could not find a weakness that they could exploit to use to escape.

He hopped off the rock to lie down on the grass to stare up at the sky. The ground was much more comfortable than the higher perch the rock offered. Not like there was anything here to look at. "So any ideas on how we get out of here?"

She shook her head. "I don't know much magic. This is beyond anything I know of."

The sky, like the rest of where they were held, was completely empty. No clouds, no sun, no birds, no bugs. No sound either, that he could tell. "Why don't you know magic?"

"Because using youkai magic and human magic at the same time is impossible."

He leaned up on an elbow to give her a strange look. "But you're human now." Which meant that if she did have any youkai magic, it wasn't present to counter her drawing on her human magic. He wondered why elemental magic of youkai and humans didn't seem to be able to combine. He'd have to ask sensei about it.

She gave him another shrug. "I don't control the power very well."

"Time goes by differently in your mind. We have plenty of time for me to teach you the basics. What element do you use?"

She gave a long-suffering sigh. "You are impossible."

He lay back down and closed his eyes and said with a grin, "You worry about things too much. Take them as they come." After a pause, he opened his eyes back up to look at her. "Now, element, or should I just try using my powers on you and find out from your defenses?"

"Earth."

"Aren't earth and air opposites? Since they're the other two elements besides fire and water, and those are obviously opposites?"

"I'd imagine so."

"What happens when you combine opposites?"

"What are you getting at?"

"They cancel each other out. And because of that, we have a chance of getting out of here. What happens when you combined air and earth?"

"… They separate, like when one mixes oil and water."

They nodded in understanding, and began drawing in their power. Dark amber light surrounded the woman, while pale blue surrounded the boy.

As the two magics came in contact with each other, there was a loud explosion, and both were sent flying away from each other. And from the prison a dead man had made for them.

**-- Tokyo, Japan --**

Across the city, many a set of ears were sent twitching as a long, sorrowful, commanding howl filled their ears.

In an unremarkable hospital, a redhead jumped suddenly out of the half-asleep state she was in. She looked around with a surprised look, realized the other occupants of the room didn't hear it, and frowned. "How long is your stay?" the brunet asked, no longer pretending to read the six-month old copy of _Good Housekeeping_ he had been flipping through. She pondered his words. "It's over," she said, realization barely evident in her voice. The air elementalist was not surprised when she used superhuman speed to disappear from the room.

The brunet waited until he thought the redhead was out of hearing distance, chucked the magazine he had been staring at onto the table before him, and quietly walked out, leaving behind a blue athletic bag.

The bird youkai was getting a trifled annoyed with the whole thing- what was up with those two- when another young brunet sauntered down the hall, still trailing a few IV's, barely pausing to pick up the athletic bag the human had left lying on the ground. He gave the wide-eyed blonde a cheery salute before disappearing into a bathroom. Minutes later he came out, dressed in regular clothes, IV's no longer dangling from his arms. The blonde chirped her annoyance and paged a doctor to retrieve their no-longer unconscious patient before he did something stupid. Turning her head to try and catch him in her hypnotic gaze, she realized the boy had already left. It was moments like this, she mused, that made her wish she was something scarier than a bird youkai. She couldn't growl.

Outside and a bit of a ways down the street, a young girl stopped in her meander down the sidewalk to turn and streak back in the direction she had come, dark braid whipping tail-like behind her.

In a small, uncozy hotel room, another redhead woke from slumber. Rising unsteadily, he gave the other occupant of the room a long look. Her fingers were clenching the blanket as her body acknowledged the summons, but could make no further move to leave so long as her mind was not with it. He limped over to the table and read the note left there. He snorted and limped over to the door. Opening it, he told the unconscious woman over his shoulder, "You're supposed to come too, you realize." The door shut. Shortly thereafter, there was the rev of a motorcycle starting.

In a small shrine shaded by a large tree that radiated a peaceful, but forceful, power, a silver-haired, dog-eared man raised his head to the sky, ears twitching, and gave a long sigh. No matter the promise, the lords would always come first. He stood and left.

The sound of the door slamming seemed to waken the young woman sleeping on the sofa, for her eyes snapped open and she shot up with a start. "That two-faced bastard. I'll kill him," she told the cat who had jumped up onto her lap to investigate the movement. He squinted his eyes shut and gave a wise, deep "maoh" as he settled down to sleep. Eerily blue eyes faded back into a stormy gray, and she shoved the cat off to go upstairs to find a change of clothes.

One final redhead stopped in his discussion with a kappa about the mysterious death of a serpent. The kappa could not hear the summons, but those of the blood of the Lands could. As eldest taiyoukai, it was his choice whether he answered or not, but he knew his junior would not call session without good cause. There were a few things he had to do first. He gave the kappa a polite bow, then disappeared in a swirl of red bubbles.

The last found herself in another cage, this one more powerful than the previous. After all, the creator was alive, well, and more than capable of crushing the lost spirit with a simple thought. "I never would have thought you would come to me voluntarily, miko." Dark light surrounded the spirit to suppress holy magic she didn't have.

In Hiroshima, a firebird spread its wings in flight.

There was no response in Niigata.


	21. Twenty: Travel Plans

**Information on the Four Lands:**

_**North**_- ruled by Tsukikage, a black wolf, heir is her younger brother Kouga, symbol is a green leaf, based in Niigata prefecture (Tsukikage herself found in city of Niigata, most of the rest of the family on the farm in the mountains)

_**East**_- ruled by Hizashi, a phoenix, no heir, symbol is a red flame, based in Hiroshima (yes, I know that's on the western part of Honshu, but the entire country is the Land of the Rising Sun... _sheepish grin_)

_**South**_- ruled by Yoko, a gold kitsune, no heir (Mat has been disinherited and the ruler must be gold, thus taking Chame out of the running), symbol is an orange starbust, based in Tokyo

_**West**_- ruled by Sesshoumaru, a white dog, no heir (no children, and Inu-Yasha is hanyou), symbol is a blue crescent moon, based in Kyoto (who can't see Sess in control of Japan's former capital?)

**Chapter Twenty: Travel Plans**

"_If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared."_

- Niccolo Machiavelli

**-- Late Afternoon, May 22, Tokyo, Japan --**

Yoko's first stop was to a small apartment home to a junior high teacher. For being a bachelor pad, it was surprisingly neat. Air masters were typically the messiest of all the elemental types. Yoshi didn't look too pleased to see the redheaded kitsune taiyoukai, but Yoko didn't care too much what the human felt.

"Do you prepare for a trip?" The kitsune asked, watching the young man pack a suitcase.

The brunet started, turning to glare at the intruder. "As well you should know, Yoko-sama."

The redhead sat down in a chair, not bothering to wait for an invitation to sit that he wouldn't receive. "Do not bother. It does not concern you, and I need you to stay here and keep an eye on the scions. The others have no choice in their involvement."

"You must be joking. There's one of me and three of them, and I'm only supposed to watch the kid. Not that I don't mind finally having a student worth spending my time teaching. But you can't expect me to watch the girls. It'd be too obvious."

"I could take the miko with me," Yoko mused. "It would answer some questions she should be asking. It surprises me that she has not sought me out yet."

"She's a bit on the forgetful side," the brunet said with a grin. "So you're releasing me from my other responsibilities?"

"For the time being, the boy is your main concern. I worry as to why he managed to escape the dragon so easily."

Yoshi got to work unpacking the suitcase. When the taiyoukai of the South spoke, you listened, even if you were only human and not necessarily one of his subjects. "Well don't ask me. I had barely started a conversation with him when his magic suddenly got reflected back on himself. And-"

"His magic did what?"

He pulled open a dresser drawer and started putting away clothes. "Wrapped around him so tightly his lungs stopped. Someone else was forcing it, and I managed to get him to back off, but the kid was still hooked up to a respirator when I left."

Yoko was silent. Even with Yoshi's experience in reading expressionless faces, he couldn't make out what the kitsune was thinking.

The kitsune grinned unexpectedly. Though, Yoshi thought wryly, kitsune grinning out of the blue _was_ to be expected. Their sense of humor was overly broad. "That explains it."

He didn't bother asking what the older man was talking about. The answer would only be vague and unhelpful, provided the kitsune didn't dodge the question completely.

"Any idea on how long you'll be?"

"I have no idea," the kitsune said, grin not fading.

"And what should I do about the wolf hanyou, if you're taking the miko with you?"

"You might try to find her," the kitsune admitted. "She disappeared from her usual haunts, and my grandchildren were busy stopping someone clearing out a serpent's nest or I would have made them look for her. The kit likes her and my grandson is overly fond of the idea of a new toy."

"A little too much information there, Yoko-sama," the brunet said as he took the last of his things out of the suitcase.

"Not everything comes back to sex with us," the redhead replied with a throaty chuckle.

"Just ninety-nine percent of it, right?"

Yoko thought about it for a minute, before saying, "We like puzzles as well."

There was a snort of disbelief. "I doubt even you could solve the puzzle a woman is, much less what that woman is."

"I said nothing of him actually being able to solve the puzzle, just that he has found something new to try and solve."

There was a pause as he left the room to return the suitcase to its usual spot in the closet.

When he came back, he handed a cup of sake to Yoko, who grinned at the unspoken offer of hospitality from a man who disliked him. Yoshi sat down on the floor in front of him. The brunet's dual-colored eyes bore into Yoko's own aquamarine eyes as he asked seriously, "Is there something going on with the North, Yoko-sama?"

The grin slipped for less than a millisecond, but Yoshi had caught it. Of course, if the kitsune's poker face had twitched, it was because he had wanted it to. "That is what we shall see, won't we?"

He had spent far too many years in the other's presence to not know what that dodge meant. Something very bad was going on.

Yoshi decided not to mention the young wolf that had accompanied Souta. Chances were, whatever had happened, whoever was behind it didn't know she had escaped whatever had befallen the North. Maybe he should go find her before she managed to get out of town and convince her not to follow the Summons.

Since when did he look out for demons?

"Christ, I need a cigarette."

Yoko set the empty cup down on the small table beside him. "Buddhists usually do not swear by a Christian god. And you said you quit."

"I did," Yoshi said, eyes searching the room for the unused pack he remembered stashing.

"Quit or say you quit?" Yoko said with a grin, one finger pointing to the desk.

Pale purple light flickered around the pack, and a small gust of wind sent the pack flying unerringly into Yoshi's hands.

"I've quit five times this year," he said with a grin as he tapped the pack against his palm.

"It seems to me you quit each time you spend your paycheck on alcohol and forget to set aside money for nicotine."

The air master shrugged, calmly flicking a lighter to the cigarette in his mouth. "Everyone has their vices."

"Smoking kills. Alcohol is bad for the liver." Yoko's eyes twinkled.

"Yeah, well, not all of us are immortal. At least I'm getting killed by something I like doing."

"We should all be so lucky. Do take care, young one. You would not want to lose your other eye now, would you?" Yoko chuckled darkly and disappeared from the chair. Sooner or later, someone would have to tell that kitsune that sparkling red bubbles weren't suitably noble enough for a taiyoukai. Though chances were that was the entire reason he did it.

It had definitely been the right thing not to mention Fukii. The old kitsune was not above indiscriminate slaughter. He was youkai, after all. And powerful though he was, he was always looking to gain more.

Yoshi stared at the chair the youkai had been sitting in and thought as the cigarette grew shorter.

It was physically painful to ignore a Summons. Mischa was related by blood to the North, and thus could feel the general Summons. If Yoko didn't expect to see her at the meeting place, that meant she was ignoring the Summons or else couldn't answer it.

Honestly, the Meirin family were the unluckiest people he had ever had the misfortune of knowing. Even having a different name hadn't helped him to escape the family's bad luck.

And maybe, he thought as he crushed the cigarette in the ashtray, that was the reason he cared. He had taken to the kid, and with him came all the troubles he and his family had. Both redhead and brunet said they were 'cousins, sort of' and that was that.

He had a pair of wolves to find and try to keep in Tokyo. Souta could look after himself for a bit. Maybe the winds would know where the two were.

**-----**

The motorcycle didn't even slow down as the driver scooped up the girl streaking down the side of the sidewalk.

"Brother!" Chame shouted over the wind, managing to climb around to sitting behind him on the bike. "You're still hurt! You're going to get into an accident, and then who's going to fix you up?"

"I'll be fine!"

She would've argued- or demonstrated her point by two fingers into his wound- but the Summons, she had to admit, was more important than their health. Mostly. Not to mention making the driver pass out from pain was stupid.

They held a conversation at the many red lights Matsuro seemed to have the misfortune of getting.

"Anyone else we need to pick up?"

"What happened with Musha?"

"So far out of it she barely twitched at the Summons. You're right, her spirit's completely gone."

"First thing we do when we finish whatever we're Summoned for is track down where she went. Shin-sama will be very angry if we rescued Musha only to get her killed through carelessness."

Neither wanted an angry miko on their tails. Even one that claimed to dislike killing. "Maybe we can convince our honored grandfather he doesn't really need both of us there."

She hit him upside the head. "A meeting of the families isn't to be brushed off just to find one wayward spirit. The only reason _you'd_ feel the Summons is if-"

He cut her off. "Just because I've been disowned doesn't mean I don't help my family, kit-chan. I'm giving you a ride there, after all. But we also need to realize that a missing spirit, especially-" They both knew why he felt the Summons and neither wanted to dwell on it.

"You're too stupid to realize you're too hurt to stay conscious the entire drive there."

"For a kitsune, kit-chan, you're entirely too pessimistic."

"Bite me."

"You're too young for my tastes, kit-chan. Not to mention even kitsune frown upon fooling around with siblings."

Chame made a gagging noise. "You weren't supposed to take that literally."

"Then why say it?"

"I picked it up in America."

"No wonder I found you in a McDonald's."

Chame's retort was lost in a squeal of brakes as a red sports car ran the red light, heading straight into a small sedan.

"Humans are complete idiots."

"Too bad we have to share the road with them."

"You think we should put out that fire?"

"Let them handle their own problems."

**-----**

"Ayame-san, I'm beginning to think you're stalking me."

Neither the brunet nor the green-haired girl actually looked at the other as they walked down the crowded stairs to the rail station. Nor could either of them say for certain who had been there first.

"I suppose if I was human, you could call it stalking. I like the term 'protecting my investments.'"

One tanned fist clenched. "Ayame-san, you-" he began in a harsh voice.

"We are still friends, aren't we, Souta-kun?" He studiously ignored the wide-eyed look she gave him. "It's just, in a way, he's my father. And standing up to him is like trying to stare down a tsunami. It can't be done. So I have to do as he orders."

Souta was of two minds about that. One, he was somewhat naively disappointed that she cared for herself more than for her friends, and two, if he was truly honest with himself, he'd probably do the same thing. Self-preservation. Not to mention being realistic. The immortal weren't in any rush to die, and he had only a couple decades to look forward to, so why not sacrifice the one that doesn't live as long anyway?

But still. To learn your best friend is youkai- which really isn't all to horrifying because you read too much manga, - doesn't even actually need to go to school- has really only been doing it because she's spying on you because of something about your sister, - and then have her tell people where to find you- nothing too bad until you're told that they wanted to dissect you to find something you don't even have. It didn't seem like there was really a good friendship there.

Was Mischa all that different in the way she didn't tell him who she was? Strange how he could accept her hiding of the truth and not Ayame's. Probably because she hadn't tried to get him killed. Admittedly it was just kidnapping and through a third party, but he doubted Mischa would do that either. She'd just try to kill him herself, should he ever give her reason to. Kidnapping was too underhanded, even for someone who didn't mind playing dirty every once and awhile. And she had told him. Eventually.

"Souta-kun, please."

Both had stopped, causing the other pedestrians to walk around the two teenagers, some giving sour looks for blocking the path.

"She knew you were youkai, didn't she? That's how she scared you into talking to me again," he said.

Ayame looked puzzled, then shook her head. "No, she never would have told you. None of us ever tell a human that someone else is a demon. Not unless we're working the tabloids. She has… more interesting methods of persuasion." Ayame ran a light hand on her neck.

He wanted to ask, but was also afraid to. Demons had different ways of negotiating. His head was overflowing with information from Kagome and the youkai that had he had met, teaching him about magic, youkai, secrets, and a different version of history. He didn't need, didn't want, more information. He was still trying to make sense of what he had gotten from Kagome's late-night crash course into youkai and combining it with hints his sensei had dropped every so often. So he let the subject drop. Again.

"Ayame-san, you were supposed to be my friend."

"I still am," she said, one hand reaching out to be placed gently on his arm, trying to reinforce her quiet words.

His arm pulled away from her touch and she let her hand drop. "But given the choice, you'd still turn on me if your life was in danger."

Her eyes were almost apologetic. "Souta-kun, I am who I am. At least you won't feel betrayed if I ever have to do it again."

That wasn't comforting in the least. "And what would it take for you to never be put in that position again?" Because before this month, Ayame had really been a good friend. Besides the whole Mischa thing last year. And he wanted his friend back, and not this stranger who let him spend three days wondering what the hell had happened to his life that he was getting kidnapped.

It made him wish Mischa hadn't gotten rid of the sake at home. Alcohol seemed like a really good idea right about now.

"Stop my father, I guess. No one else has ever managed to back me into a corner before."

"So how do we do that?" He asked with a grin.

"You don't," she said, slight smile fading as she realized that his grin was false, that he was serious. "You can't."

"Are immortals always this pessimistic? Because the only thing you can't do is the thing you haven't done yet. It's never failure. It's just a slower approach to success."

Ayame gave him a stare that said he was young, stupid, and worst of all, human.

"Hey, if you're too chicken to commit patricide, I'll just have to do it for you. Because before this mess started, you were my friend. And even though I know you wouldn't do it for me- since my dad's already dead, not to mention you're too chicken to do it anyway- I still have to do it for you."

You chose your friends, he thought with a smile. And you never turned your back on them. In either sense of the phrase, in this case.

And his smile was catching, because red eyes lit up with delight, once she got over the chicken comment. Even if this did get her killed, she was finally making her own choice. And the boy, the human smiling at her, was the one who had shown her that. It had just taken a couple false starts and betrayals. And maybe she'd grow a conscience enough to feel guilty about what she had done, but it was still to early for her to.

She grabbed his wrist and pulled him down the stairs. "To start off with," she said, expertly navigating the always-crowded train station, "you should see something. Got enough money on your railcard to get you to a ticket for the Shinkansen to Maebashi?"

Souta let himself be dragged further into the station. "What's in Maebashi?"

"A rental car to take us further into the mountains. I lied when I said my uncle was released. Only his spirit was."

"It's controlling your father?"

Ayame pulled up short at a sign flashing the different trains leaving for different destinations.

"Sort of. Look, the next train for Maebashi is tonight. Go home, get anything you might need, and meet me back here an hour before the train departs. And make sure not to tell your sister where you're going."

"No way. She just spent the past few days worried sick because she didn't know where I was."

She turned her head to give him a smirk he was beginning to think was ingrained deeply in youkai facial muscles. Malicious. Amused. Serious. Sarcastic. Wholly and utterly youkai, that no human could hope to use without living to the age of twelve decades and still look prepubescent. "So leave a note this time."

**-----**

With a flash and a bang, a tall youkai appeared in the shrine's courtyard, eight long gold tails waving about him, the only sign of his annoyance. Aquamarine eyes were decidedly blank as he waited for the aftershock of the teleportation to fade.

So used to teleportation without problems, the massive headache that hit him left him confused long enough for an angry young woman to land a fist in his face. He stepped backwards, the minor pain still more than he expected from a human.

"Do you always jump to conclusions without listening to the request?" he asked, one hand rubbing his bruised cheek.

"Yoko-sama?" She sounded startled. "I'm so sorry, I just sensed kitsune and assumed- My deepest apologies!" She bowed profusely.

"I should be fine. Though I would like to know what my grandson has done that would merit you punching him," he said, raising one hand to stop the bowing.

Stormy eyes narrowed dangerously. "He's been spying on me for the dragons."

Yoko gave her a pointed look.

"Aunt Mikomi showed me," she explained, mistaking his look for disbelief. "I know something has happened to her- why else would I be getting her visions? Can you do that bubble thing with me in tow? I need to find her." Or what's left of her, both thought in unison.

Yoko grinned. He would not have to ask the miko to come with him as a favor- she was asking him for the favor. Though he was worried about the fact she seemed to be getting Mikomi's visions. They gave more information than he liked. "I have never tried it, but it should work." Provided instinctive miko powers did not try to obliterate him for teleporting her somewhere.

The shrine already was trying to get rid of him. It sensed youki far more powerful than it could suppress, even with the power of the Goshinboku helping it.

"Let me just leave a note for Souta in case he gets back from practice before me," she said, turning to go inside.

He hummed in amusement as he watched her dash inside and listened to her footsteps dance about the house as she searched for something. Telling her that she should pack an overnight bag seemed an unwise move. The flighty girl's reactions were difficult to predict, and there would be clothes enough where they were going. Provided she liked outdated clothes.

He would like to know why she seemed to have gained her aunt's second Sight. That did not bode well for events at the North's stronghold. His junior had likely visited the farm and found it in shambles, and thus the call for a general meeting to see who survived. The young priestess might be able to see something where youkai magic had failed- to see who it was who had systematically destroyed the families of the four lands until only a handful remained.

**-- Evening, Niigata, Japan --**

Sesshoumaru watched the two walk about the strangely empty land. There were no bodies- though death still clung tenaciously in the air. The sole body he had found- burnt by dragon's fire beyond recognition- had been human. Most likely the miko that had lived here the past thirty years.

"This is seriously fucked up," the dark-haired human said, kneeling beside a bloodied indent in the grass. "Where the hell are their bodies, if they died?"

The redhead knelt beside him, running slender fingers through the blood to use to mark the shape of the body. "The bodies were here," she said in her soft voice, the shape taking on a vaguely humanoid form, bent impossibly backwards, and some pieces missing. "Something destroyed them where they lay."

"No shit, Sherlock."

The woman just looked at him with wide dark orange eyes.

"Shit, don't look at me like that. You're a fucking taiyoukai, you're not supposed to feel hurt from an insult."

"Little brother, this Sesshoumaru did not teleport you here just so you could tease the Lady of the East. How many?"

The dark-haired man repressed an urge to strangle the silver-haired man glowering at him. "I'm up to one hundred seventeen, but I already know there's one missing."

"Who might that be?"

The redhead spoke. "Kouga is not here, Sesshoumaru-sama. His scent is at the gate, leaving. One wonders if even Tsukikage-sama knew all of her family, for it is likely impossible to tell who else might not be here."

Inu-Yasha stood. "And where the fuck are Tsukikage and Yoko? They know how to teleport."

"That does not mean they will," Hizashi pointed out softly. "This one flew."

"Yoko likes to teleport," Sesshoumaru said, his face looking like he had swallowed something sour for agreeing to something his half-brother said.

"The little redhead is missing too," Inu-Yasha said.

Had the other two had senses of humor, they would have pointed out that there were well over a dozen of those and which one did he mean? Though not so numerous as the brown wolves, Ayame's white lineage bred true in her descendants. But both knew who he spoke of- better than he himself spoke of. After all, they had caught the young pup spying on numerous occasions over the decades.

The only reason Inu-Yasha would know she was missing was if he had seen her. And that meant she was in Tokyo. Which meant the miko had once again foreseen disaster and tried to blunt it. The bodies had been destroyed to prevent the killer from eating them and gaining their strength. Which also meant Tsukikage would not be showing up; the killer had probably gone to her after killing all those there and eaten her to gain hers- since he was under the impression the rest of the North had been destroyed.

It was only a matter of time before someone found what remained of Kouga. And what had happened to the young hanyou, for the killer to assume he would be able to gain a taiyoukai's power by killing everyone in the family's stronghold?

The two taiyoukai had exchanged that in a single glance over the human's head.

"She must be found," Hizashi said. She spoke of both hanyou and redhead.

"She will come here." Again, a dual meaning, though for Inu-Yasha, who didn't understand what the two taiyoukai had realized, it seemed as if they spoke of the secondary heir.

Inu-Yasha snorted. "She'll probably run, since she thinks human technology is stupid. She won't be here until morning."

"Lady," Sesshoumaru said, his request clear.

Inu-Yasha scowled. "You two want to tell me what the hell's got your hackles raised?"

"One will go retrieve her." The firebird bowed politely to the two, then her form blurred to that of a small, red, four-winged bird.

"Like you can travel any faster than her," Inu-Yasha said with a scoff, crossing his arms.

The firebird disappeared from sight.

"She travels faster than human flight machines, little brother. I have warned you not to underestimate the power of the taiyoukai."

"So she's gone to get Ki. That still leaves everyone of the South and Tsukikage." He didn't mention Mischa. For all he knew, she was still rogue. And the lords had the responsibility to destroy a hanyou gone mad. For all that the pup could annoy him, he wasn't about to let his half-brother kill her. It was possible to regain control of your mind. Though after the third time, he never let his sword get more than a foot away from him if possible.

"Yoko is habitually late. His grandchildren will be no different. Tsukikage will not come," Sesshoumaru said.

"Just what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Inu-Yasha asked.

Sesshoumaru gave him a bland look that said he was, as usual, an idiot. "If this is what happened to entire tribe of wolf demons, what do you think happened to just one wolf demon?" If the demon that had attacked was strong enough to wipe out the entire tribe, a sole taiyoukai caught unawares would not be much of a problem. He doubted he himself would be a proper challenge- especially if the killer had managed to kill the last two wolves and taken the power of the North for himself.

"God, you're such a fucking pessimist."

One silver eyebrow twitched minutely. "Little brother, need I remind you I have years of knowledge and experience to draw upon to reach conclusions? What I say is true, is. Now get back to counting. Others may have survived."

Inu-Yasha snorted. The stare continued and the younger finally broke eye contact. "Thinks I'm a fucking go-fer," he mumbled, returning to his chore of marking each fallen body in the quickly darkening light, still mumbling curses.

Sesshoumaru ignored his brother's insults as to his lineage and probable sexual orientation and returned to studying the sole body that remained. She was charred beyond recognition, and even with heightened senses, it was virtually impossible to make out her scent over the smell. Someone else had been beside her. Most likely dying- miko seemed to not be able to stay away from trying to ease the suffering of the dead.

Slightly further away, a full-grown wolf demon in animal form had lain. The size was too great for many of the wolf demons here, and the white hairs that managed to escape the blast told him that it had been Ayame.

Kouga did not like leaving his mate for any length of time. Where would he have gone without her?

Tsukikage.

A slight chance, however slim, should be looked into. Giving the annoyed human one final look, he disappeared in a cloud of green mist.

**-- Tokyo, Japan --**

The young wolf demon was remarkably easy to find. Though that fact worried Hizashi. The pup was very good at hiding any stray bits of herself that might be trailing. If the pup was emitting, it was either because she was hurt and beyond the usually instinctive control she had on her youki, or else she had more power than she was used to hiding. Worrisome.

The four-winged bird settled down on the redhead's shoulder and waited.

Fukii didn't quite understand what was wrong with her. Her sprint out of the hospital and north hadn't tired her, and yet her mind was sluggish, confused. She had been sitting on this wall four hours, trying to figure out if it was the Summons- something she'd only felt twice before- or if something else was wrong with her, like what had happened to the air-user, her power turned against her. Not that she was an elementalist.

She ignored the presence of the bird for a few seconds, intent on figuring out what was wrong with her, when she realized that there was more youki than there should be in the air around her.

The bird dodged the hand that came up to capture it.

\\ '_The little one took her time in noticing this one, \\_ the bird twittered in her ear, wings ruffling her hair. \\ _'Should not the pup head northward?' _\\

Fukii wasn't surprised that a messenger had been sent. "I'm too exhausted to move," she complained to the small bird, "and I don't even know why."

_\\ 'Think about the reason she brought the little one here.' \\_

The redhead sat up straight, head turning to try and focus on the blur of red an inch in front of her face. "How'd you know that?"

_\\ 'Ask questions later. Think, little one. This one know she is intelligent.' \\_

Fukii was getting dizzy from trying to focus on the bird. Elbows on knees, chin in hands, she stared intently at the road she had been sprinting down, already hours of true Tokyo and minutes away from leaving suburbia as well.

The miko had brought her here. Supposedly because she was being overly nosy, but since when was that new?

She cursed, realization hitting her. The nosiness had been an excuse. The miko could see the future. Not even a day after she had been dragged away from the farm, there had been a general Summons to call all taiyoukai and their family. Mikomi had wanted her out of the way for something to happen, and now that it had, she was free to return.

When she got home, she was going to give that annoying miko a piece of her mind. Provided Shinji wasn't anywhere near. They always got in trouble when they tried to yell at the miko around her husband. Probably because he was a lot bigger than they were.

The bird seemed to have caught on that she knew what had happened- or thought she did- and twittered. _\\ 'If the little one still feel unwell, this one can bring her there.' \\_

Fukii made a rude noise. "No, offense, but you're a messenger bird. How could you bring me anywhere?"

The bird made a soft whistling noise. _\\ 'Just a messenger bird? The little one must mistake this one for one of her subjects.' \\ _The bird launched herself off Fukii's shoulder to hover a short distance from her face, dual set of red wings prominent.

The young wolf's face, the small bird thought, was priceless in its abject horror.

The girl hopped to her feet and bowed low. "Apologies, Hizashi-sama, I had not realized it was you. Please forgive me."

There was a melodious chuckle as the bird changed from animal to humanoid form. "No apologies necessary, little one. This was a bit too close to her eyes to truly see who this one was. Does the little one still refuse aid?"

"Of course not!" Fukii said, still trying not to look terribly tense in the beautiful, powerful youkai's presence. "I would be honored for your aid in speeding my journey to the meeting place."

The youkai gave the younger redhead a sad look. "One should be warned that things are not as they should be. Understanding will come when we are there."

Before Fukii had time to press for answers, she took the girl's hands and both faded from sight.


	22. Twenty One: The North's Farm

**Chapter Twenty-One: The North's Farm**

_The good, the bad, hardship, joy, tragedy, love, and happiness are all interwoven into one indescribable whole that one calls life. You cannot separate the good from the bad, and perhaps there is no need to do so. _

--Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis

**-- Evening, May 22, Tokyo, Japan --**

The winds had led him to a tall apartment complex. The winds couldn't really point out which apartment it was- after all, it didn't travel the hallways, nor could it actually read, or even point for that matter. It merely led him to a location. So he simply waited until someone came home late from work and followed them in, letting them think he had simply forgotten his key.

Once inside, he drew upon his magic again to ask the air around him if they had seen the wolf hanyou. The air in the corridors wasn't particularly helpful- she really hadn't been in its presence, leaving him wondering if the winds weren't just playing a cruel joke on their master.

He hit the jackpot when the air mentioned youkai who lived here. It was possible someone had teleported her in, bypassing the corridors. So he had the air turn into a breeze and he followed it to the seventh floor, eighth door on the right.

It couldn't open the door for him, not without ruining the tumblers for further use, so he let himself fade into air instead. It was a difficult task, especially for an all-too-human air master, but it was possible. Air could go many more places than a human could, and he slipped through cracks in the door into the apartment.

Once inside, he slipped back into corporeal form and grimaced. It would be a while before he could do that again. Physical bodies didn't like getting turned into elements. He gave the place a quick look over.

Bachelor's pad, was his first thought. His second was he doesn't stay here much. And the air shaping beside him into a faint outline of a fox told him a kitsune youkai lived here, which explained why he wasn't here often. Territorial. Getting laid meant either her place or a hotel room. His place was for family.

He wondered why the wind had brought him here, if he had the right place at all.

The air around him was getting impatient. One wouldn't think of it like that, but his years of practice had given his element more of a presence with him than it had around anyone else. Even fellow air users didn't have the same sort of communication that he had with it. Which was why he was a master, even if he was only human.

The air stirred itself into a breeze without his urging and nudged him gently towards a closed door. Likely the spare bedroom, since the open door across from it led into an exotically furnished bedroom that left no doubts in his mind a youkai lived here. Anachronistic, but not as bad as some he had met.

There was no energy coming from behind the door that he could tell, and he wondered why the air seemed so intent on bringing him here.

Except, now that the air had stopped in its magic-induced movement, there was a faint feel of _something_ behind there. He pushed the door open.

Spare bedroom. Small table with chair beside the door, crayon doodles shuffled all about and a note in elegant katakana sitting on top of it all like a queen on her throne. Nightstand with a small lamp on it. Two beds, one unmade and recently occupied, other occupied by a woman too deeply unconscious to just be asleep...

And too energy-less to actually be alive.

The air drew on his power again and nudged him forward. It was bossier than normal. Usually it was content to simply watch and wait to see what he would do next.

The faint pulse of power from the sleeping woman drew him from his thoughts and he stared.

Why had the air brought him to his student's _sister_? Realizing that question wasn't the important one, he tapped into his powers to trace the magic that was beating faintly.

One, miko holy magic, twisted as if someone had tried to reinforce a spell and miscast it. A seal, suppressing all youkai power, making it so that even if the target did have that power, she could no longer use it.

Two, youkai magic, permanency. Whatever it had been cast upon could no longer be removed while the wearer lived. Not an offensive spell, until you remembered it was usually tied to something mean. And the mean part of this spell was it was tied to the first.

And an interesting third, human earth magic, coursing throughout the body that made him realize that even though the body was currently soulless and supposed to be dead, the earth magic was aware enough to keep its holder balanced on the line between life and death.

And combining all that information, he realized it wasn't Mischa's human day. It was humanity for eternity, until she found a youkai stronger than the one who had placed the permanency seal to remove it. And judging by the familiar twist of red the spell had, he seriously doubted she would find anyone stronger than Yoko, much less talk him into removing his spell.

"Okay, you're the one who wanted me in here, what did you expect me to do?" he asked the still air around him.

It didn't answer. After all, it was mindless and had no voice.

"And what the hell am I supposed to do with her? I can't trace where her soul is, and you can't either. That takes a spiritualist..." his voice trailed off. The air waited breathlessly. Figuratively speaking. "A miko."

The air seemed slightly disappointed. It swirled into a vague shape of colorless bubbles.

It took longer than normal to translate. "What do you mean she left with Yoko?"

The air obviously couldn't answer.

He sighed. First things first, figure out why she was here. And that the air _could_ tell him. Show, actually. He pulled on his power and gave the air another request. "Show me what happened here."

The air twisted playfully on his magic, and suddenly he was looking at two ghostly figures twined about each other... "Too far back!" he snapped at the amused element.

The air shaped itself into a much clearer- though still colorless- picture of a small child kneeling beside two still forms. The child stood and blurred into a taller form. Shapeshifter, he thought, probably a kitsune. She- the form had feminine curves- gave one still body a quick once-over, then it was pulled quickly onto a bed, wrapped up mummy-like, and left alone. The second she didn't bother getting into bed before giving immediate first-aid. After she was done with that, she placed a hand on its chest and sat. The air couldn't show him magic, but the lack of movement from both told him that she was doing something with it. The picture faded.

"Can you give me a clearer look at their faces?" He didn't have any hopes of actually recognizing the other two, but he was curious to see which was Mischa. The air blew vaguely in the direction of Mischa "Obviously," he drawled out in an annoyed voice, "but which one?" It swirled itself into the shape of a body cocooned in ace bandages.

She wasn't now. He spotted the wrappings thrown haphazardly onto the ground. Earth magic, he knew, could grow things. Had she known enough to make it knit whatever wounds she had received? The air here wouldn't know how the two were injured, but when he got outside he could ask the wind to backtrack. Though asking one of the three seemed the easier option. But Yoko had taken the miko and he couldn't think of anyone else who would know how to trace a soul, even with the knowledge of where the body was.

Was it possible what had happened to Souta had happened to her? He hadn't been allowed to see Souta, so it was possible the boy's soul had also gone wandering- though it had obviously made it back soon after he left the hospital, since the small piece of magic he had set to guarding the unconscious boy had returned.

"And who are the other two?" He didn't bother asking why she was with them- it wouldn't know, much less be able to show him.

The air seemed a bit confused about who they were- which was rather odd, since the kitsune lived here. It first took the form of a colorless fox, then disappeared into more colorless bubbles. It obviously didn't know how to show who they were. But the bubbles were enough of a hint.

"Yoko's relatives?"

The air seemed brighter, strange as that was in a relatively dark, windowless room.

"I didn't realize he had any left. He's never mentioned them. But then, I wouldn't be very high on his 'tell personal information' list, would I?"

The air breezed about him merrily; laughing at him thinking a taiyoukai would spend more than a second of thought on a mere human. He sighed. It had spent too much time in his presence. Another couple years, and it would probably find a voice. And after that, the ability to take on an actual form, instead of ghost-like pictures and blowing winds.

Maybe he should move to a different town with less magically-mutated winds and let these slowly fade back to their previous existence as nothing but air.

So what to do what the comatose woman who looked too much like the priestess Kagome and not enough like the hanyou Mischa?

Her fingers suddenly dug into the blankets, holding on as if it were a lifeline, then just as suddenly released.

Was she waking up? The dark light of magic that coursed through her had gone up a bit with the movement, but had gone back down. He sighed. Of course not. It took a great deal of effort to get a wayward soul home, and it was virtually impossible on your own.

Something told him that she was the one who had managed to send Souta's soul back and that Souta was the one who would have to find her. He doubted the teenager could manage it.

He picked up the letter on the table. It was addressed to someone's brother but there was no signature at the end. The writer was going back to where an attack had taken place and her brother should keep an eye on the human for any changes and not move around much because his wounds weren't healing.

The two had obviously been paused mid-task by the summons.

Why wouldn't the one's wounds heal? It was an inborn talent in every youkai and less so in all hanyou. Unless he had been leeched of all his energy, fast-healing couldn't be stopped.

He eyed the magics around the woman's necklace. Maybe it wasn't Yoko's magic, but the other kitsune's? It would take an actual magician to be able to read all of the magic woven around that necklace, and he was lucky he could tell there were at least two people's magic on it.

The wolf would be out of the city by now, and he gave up the thought of finding her. Solving the mystery of what had happened to the kitsune and Mischa seemed the only thing to do.

He read the letter again. The air brushed around him, giving him the feeling that the winds outside could easily follow the younger kitsune's tracks.

He placed a ward in the room so that he would be told if she managed to wake up before he returned. His element was overjoyed that he wanted it to do something and swirled around the room happily, making all the papers on the table go flying.

"You're cleaning that up," he scolded.

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

It wasn't a fight so much as it was a release. Fukii had taken one sniff of the air that the firebird had teleported her into and lost it. And she took it out on the nearest target that wouldn't kill her for jumping them, who had been a dark-haired youthful-looking human man who smelled like Inu-Yasha.

Had she been in a firmer state of mind, she would have teased him about it. And then noted the date, the phase of the moon, and time of day, to figure out which one it was he had transformed by.

But she was surrounded by the stench of death, their scents all too familiar for the wolf youkai who had never been far away from the farm before the day trip to Tokyo. And she cursed herself for not being there, and them for not doing anything, and her family for dying, and the human before her for dodging her wild anger-driven punches.

He had tried speaking to her earlier, but his words had passed unintelligibly in one ear and out the other, and she continued to throw punches, wanting to take the hate, the anguish, the anger, the loss out on anything. And finally he understood, and the fight began for real.

On a good day, she would lose. Though they had similar years of experience, and she had more power behind her blows, he had the knowledge that came from having to fight to the death, something that she had never had to do, even in the scuffles that happened of late.

On a day that would never be repeated if she had anything to do with it, she would still lose. His heart wasn't in the fight- he was merely letting her vent, and using the rush of adrenaline to keep the sadness from affecting him as well. He was human, and much weaker, and had it been a good day, she would have won. But her mind wasn't in it. It was a mindless fight, and had this been to the death, he would have ended it ages ago. Even if he was human.

Youkai did not cry. Fukii's tears were the blows that didn't land as her opponent blocked them. Her screams of loss were short, hard breaths as the two duelists bounced away from each other to regain some energy.

He saw an opening and grabbed her unguarded leg, flipping her and sending her tumbling headfirst into the hard wall of a deserted building.

The rubber band holding her hair out her face snapped, and brilliant red hair fanned about her head like a halo. The unfocused look in her eyes as she tried to comprehend what had happened gave the usually sharp-eyed girl a sweetly innocent look, provided one ignored the dirt smudges, torn clothes, and quickly-fading bruises she had received from her opponent.

Fukii was too emotionally overloaded to care about getting up and kicking the crap out of him for pulling a dirty trick. She simply lay on her back and stared at the starry sky and tried to block out her senses that told her that she was so very, very alone in this world now.

He wasn't as insensitive to others as was often thought. He just didn't like anyone to have proof of it to tease about it. He had a reputation to uphold. Not to mention every time he tried to say the right thing, it ended up coming out wrong.

The dark-haired man stood over the dazed wolf and asked, "Oi, runt, you finally going to sleep for the night or are you just taking a break?"

What he had really meant to say was, "Do you think you're going to be okay or should I go find someone to be a shoulder for you to cry out now that you're done trying to rip my guts out?" But he didn't say that sort of stuff. He disguised it in crude, familiar remarks that nobody seemed to understand, but still accepted as his way of showing he cared.

She continued to stare at the dark sky as if she hadn't heard the question.

"There wasn't anything you could've done, you know."

She continued to stare unblinking upwards.

"And you would've gotten killed yourself if you stayed," he went on awkwardly.

Her head tilted a bit and sad brilliant blue eyes glared at him.

Inu-Yasha snorted. "Don't kid yourself. If they took out the whole family, what makes you think you would've made a difference?" It was the wrong thing to say.

Her gaze returned to staring unfocusedly at the stars.

He bent down, roughly took hold of one arm, and pulled her up to her feet. "Look, pipsqueak, the sky doesn't have any fucking answers to your fucking problems, so get the hell up and go talk to the lords about whether they found Tsukikage and Kouga or not."

He finally seemed to have snapped her out of her daze. She jerked her arm out of his grasp and yelled, "What the hell would you know about it, you stupid hanyou? You never had a family to begin with!"

The fight began anew.

**-- In Transit --**

Souta had fallen asleep practically the moment the train had departed from the station. The green-haired girl sitting across from him had no plans in sleeping. She was far too worried about getting found out.

Her father had warned about becoming obsessed. And while she wouldn't admit to obsession, she would admit to a bit of an attachment to the young brunet.

As if he was one to talk about obsession. Ever since her father had found out about the Meirin line not dying out- and who knew how he hadn't figured it out before? - he had been obsessed in finding the stupid jewel they supposedly protected and using its power to help him destroy the taiyoukai once and for all. And with them gone, he was free to reject their laws of noninterference with human life and let youkai walk freely as they had done so many centuries ago.

Ayame was too young to remember these supposed 'good old days' and was decidedly against the whole thing. But Souta had been right in calling her a coward, she admitted privately. Standing up to a dragon with enough power to have been a taiyoukai in his own right was for someone with much more of a backbone than her. Not to mention much less of a sense of self-preservation. So she did as he asked and made trouble to keep inquisitive minds busy.

She supposed it had been the wolf hanyou that had first caused the change in the way she did and thought things. Before then, she had had no qualms about using the humans she had met as pawns in her own games to aid her father.

But the feel of very human hands around her neck, brown eyes so dark they were almost black glaring deeply into her own red eyes, low voice pitched so that anyone- even a youkai- couldn't hear unless they were right where Ayame was- held up a good foot off the ground, noses almost touching.

_"I do not like his choice of friends, but I will live with his decision for now. If I find him in that condition again, his choices do not matter. I will kill you."_

And Ayame had believed her. The raw rage coming off the human was so thick Ayame's heightened senses could practically feel it, and she had no doubt that same rage in a hanyou would make it very easy for her to kill a young dragon. And if happened on another human day, the cling of magic that was currently giving the human more strength than she should have would no doubt finish her off.

The sizzle of burning flesh where Mischa held Ayame's neck and Mischa's completely unaffected glare told her that any fight they got into would not go well for Ayame. The hanyou was used to pain, while dragon went out of her way to avoid it.

Ayame wondered why that had happened. Nothing else of the dark-haired woman had been burnt but the skin where she had touched the youkai. Allergies?

Ayame also wanted to know what the condition was Mischa had found Souta in.

She reached out and brushed Souta's bangs away from his eyes. With the touch came a flow of images from the sleeping teenager's mind.

Herself, convincing him to come with her to see a dragon bound.

Mischa, sitting on a rock, explaining that hanyou who went rogue were sealed to human form.

A scar-faced human and an orange-haired youkai, chatting with her/him on a soccer field.

Another, eye-level with a pretty brunette who called him Souta-chan, and she bit back an urge to glare at the image.

Too recent memories. She needed to go further back.

And there it was. Held protectively in the arms of a quiet woman, sobbing into a dark shirt, the smell of sake clinging to the air.

She took her hand away. He continued to sleep, completely unconscious to her actions.

"Ne, Souta-kun, I didn't take you for a weepy drunk," she told him with a half-hearted smirk. "I guess I did go a bit overboard on those theatrics, didn't I?"

It hadn't mattered then- he was just another human who was going to end up dead anyway. But it mattered now. Because he honestly thought everyone could change, if given the time to do it on their own and without the pressure of threats. And she wanted to believe that, that she could stand up to her father and maybe even live to tell the tale, just to prove that not everything was about him and his plans. And because she didn't want to let Souta down.

"When did you become so important in the first place?"

And was she still doing exactly as her father expected her to do?

She sat back into her seat and sighed. She had to be insane to be doing this. But for him to even begin to understand the scope of what he was offering to do, it had to be done.

She only hoped her brothers wouldn't be there.

**-- Late Evening, Niigata, Japan --**

It may be said that in Yoko's millennia of existence, he had, upon occasion, teleported with a passenger. Youkai for the most part, humans very infrequently, and on one single never-to-be-repeated occasion, a hanyou.

The explanation of his absolute refusal to teleport with a hanyou was simple. The hanyou had not survived the teleportation. Yoko's magic had not understood which part of the hanyou was being teleported- human or youkai or was it somehow supposed to drag along both and, even more impossibly, put the unfortunate half-demon back together? The remaining mess had destroyed the minds of every human on both ends of the teleportation. Yoko still became queasy remembering it. And it was this same exact feeling that he had now.

His passenger was less subtle about her reaction to the teleportation. She fell to her knees and vomited onto the charred earth.

He made a note never to teleport with a miko ever again.

To be fair, her reaction was probably the combination of the stench of death, the sight of a scorched body, _and_ the teleportation. But her vomit did not help the stench and he was much too queasy to feel magnanimous about the whole matter.

Never let it be said he was too old to try anything once. But never let it be said he would do them twice.

"You are late, kitsune."

He grinned at the silver-haired youkai. "I had some things to do."

"And Yoko-sama has brought something as well," the woman beside Sesshoumaru said.

"Some things must be seen to be believed."

Sesshoumaru's hard glare could be deciphered as 'you are an idiot,' while Hizashi's softer look asked what was wrong with the human.

The young woman seemed to have finished emptying her stomach and sat up, wiping her mouth with her arm with a disgusted grimace. "I'm never traveling your way again," she said, looking up at the kitsune beside her.

"That would be wise."

She hopped to her feet as she realized they weren't alone. First was a long look at the speaker, then her eyes moved to the four-winged woman beside him. Her eyes traveled back to the silver-haired man.

"You must be Sesshoumaru. Inu-Yasha mentioned you," Kagome said. "I'm Higurashi Kagome."

"We know." He didn't return her polite bow.

"Ehhh?"

One eyebrow twitched in annoyance, one mouth tweaked upwards as its owner tried to hide his amusement, and a soft, melodious soprano came from the phoenix. "The guardian is well known to us. Powerful artifacts must be kept under watch. Sesshoumaru-sama is not one for words, which means one must think carefully about what he does say."

Kagome wanted to make a complaint under her breath about silent demons, but decided better. "So, ah, is there any place nearby that won't make me nauseous? The spirits here aren't... happy." That was the cause of her nausea, but the additional teleportation had made feeling fact.

Death surrounded her and only the presence of the three living youkai near her was all that kept her from screaming the anguish of the lost who no longer had voices. Once she had become aware of her surroundings, she had recognized them from her dream. Mischa's old home. The rice farm the wolves lived on. And then the greenery had disappeared, and she realized she had merely seen an overlaying memory from whatever her aunt had done to her, and the lush farm was anything but. It still smelled of smoke.

And the silent screams the youkai couldn't hear continued to echo through her head and she fought to not show how much she didn't want to be here.

"Nearby? No."

"And Yoko-sama does not look like he wants to teleport with the guardian again."

Kagome stared at the woman, suddenly realizing she had no idea who the four-winged youkai was.

The woman smiled, guessing Kagome's question. "This one is Hizashi, taiyoukai of the East."

"And now that introductions are out of the way, where are the younger ones?" Yoko asked.

"Hizashi brought the North's pup here a few hours ago. She and my brother are currently fighting," Sesshoumaru said.

"The North's pup?" Yoko repeated.

"Yes, Inu-Yasha told us he had seen Ki in Tokyo earlier. This one is unsure of where the hanyou is. There was no pull of any descendants besides Yoko-sama's when this one was in Tokyo," the firebird explained.

Kagome knew from experience that more was being said. She ignored the matter and bowed her head in prayer. If there was no place nearby free of angry spirits, she would simply have to coax the ones here to rest. The sounds of the physical world faded away from her as she changed her view of the world to be only the dead. She noted she was surrounded primarily by the souls of wolf youkai. Had she had any doubts about where she was, this would have destroyed them.

Hizashi eyed her doubtfully. "This one wonders if that will truly help."

"The bloodline is not so thin as it cannot produce a powerful miko," Sesshoumaru said coolly. "Though it seems unwise to draw upon holy powers while in our presence."

Yoko grinned. "She's just very trusting." He paused. "Or else very much more put out about where we are than we are."

"The guardian _is_ a human, Yoko-sama. Youkai have seen much more carnage than humans could ever create, much less what one child could see."

The three waited, watching as the area around them was lit up with the soft pink of Kagome's miko powers as she slowly purified the taint that had been placed upon the farm.

"Did Sesshoumaru-sama find Tsukikage and Kouga?" The fiery-haired woman asked, breaking the silence.

Sesshoumaru gave his opposite a bland look. "What was left of Tsukikage. Kouga was nowhere to be found, though I caught from his scent that he had been there recently."

"If we cannot find Kouga," Yoko said, "then there is little we can do with Ki. And where are those two anyway?"

Two sets of eyes blinked at him.

"Ah yes, fighting, of course," he answered himself.

"More so than usual," Hizashi said softly. "The little one was highly distressed. And she is even younger than this one was."

"Have we enough evidence yet?" Sesshoumaru asked.

"Not yet. Though my grandson seems to be closing in on something of great interest. Provided he does not get himself killed by trying to get rid of the dragon himself."

None of the three thought anything of Yoko's century-long exile of Matsuro to the enemy camp. Had Kagome not been otherwise occupied, she would have learned another lesson of youkai. Family may be important, but they are not free from being manipulated either. Centuries of planning had gotten them this far, and what was the sacrifice of one to save the whole? Though from today's actions, soon there would be nothing left to preserve.

Yoko had already opened his mouth to continue when his jaw snapped tightly shut and three sets of eyes looked to the entrance.

"Did something happen to his motorcycle? It sounds like a Vespa," Hizashi noted.

"One of them has an open wound," Sesshoumaru noted.

A sole bright headlight became visible, and a small bright yellow motor scooter with its engine overtaxed and close to failing came speeding towards them, tires squealing and gravel flying as the driver braked, coming to a stop a short distance in front of them. The passenger slumped off the side and crumpled to the ground. The driver's form blurred, shrank, and she fell off the scooter, exhausted. The scooter followed its passengers' examples and teetered unsteadily before it too fell, smoking, engine partially melted from being pressed too far.

"Shit," Yoko said, all three youkai racing towards the two young kitsune.

Hizashi was already kneeling by the other redhead, hands quickly stripping away the dusty leather jacket and blood-soaked shirt, revealing another layer of bloodied fabric. "This one has a youki sink," she said, ripping away the bottom of her skirt to use to press against the seeping wound. "He has no power to draw on to heal, and any one might use would go into the sink as well."

"She overexerted herself," Sesshoumaru said, gold eyes flicking over to the dark-haired child. "She will wake shortly."

Yoko had returned to Kagome's side. He released his hold on his demon energy; causing her miko senses react to him instead of the land she was cleansing. Her eyes snapped open, seeing double as she slowly transitioned back to the realm of the living.

"You are a healer," he said without waiting for her question. "How are you at the treatment of youkai?"

She looked puzzled, then her gaze caught sight of the smoking Vespa. Still deeply in tune with her miko powers, she didn't see the two kitsune. She saw a small girl, dark hair up in a ponytail on her right side. The girl caught her gaze and ginned a wide, gap-toothed smile, eyes squinting shut. And the other, a man with black hair tied back in a short ponytail, staring intently into the palm of his ungloved right hand. He looked up with a grin and winked at her cheekily.

"Miroku-sama?"

And the two disappeared, and she was rushing towards the pale, bloodied form of the merry kitsune, not worried about who the two were she had seen.

She ignored the pull of magic coming off of him. The pull was only on the three taiyoukai, who had already wrapped their powers in tightly about themselves and put up shields to keep it from siphoning off power to wherever the sink ended. Pink light surrounded her hands as she held them over the bleeding hole in his chest- that had widened even as she watched, as the sink felt the weakness in his life energy.

Sesshoumaru had succeeded in pouring a bucket of water over the other kitsune. Hizashi bowed her head to hide a smile as Chame sat up with a curse and 'eep'ed as she saw the gold-eyed inu youkai glaring at her and scooted backwards until her back came in contact with hot metal.

"Care to explain what happened to him?" Sesshoumaru said. "This Sesshoumaru does not like surprises. Youki sinks are surprises."

Chame's eyes broke free from Sesshoumaru's gaze to check on her pale brother, Kagome's magic lighting up the dark night as she slowly healed him. Holy power wasn't usually safe to use on youkai, but it seemed her practice with her cousin had made her secure enough in her ability to use holy power to heal, not harm, Matsuro. She looked back up at the three taiyoukai.

"He picked a fight with a leech. Well, not picked, more like got in the way of its prey, thus becoming its new target. And well, she, uh, was beating the shit out of him because she's a leech and he was using an energy blade-"

"Idiot," both men said at the same time.

"Yeah, well, brother doesn't seem to have a lot of training in magic. But he's a fire elementalist, and he pulled on that to kill her, except the only way a mostly-untrained elementalist can summon something is through physical contact, so he needed her close, which meant she, well, uh-"

"You babble," Sesshoumaru said.

Chame 'eep'ed again. "So, yeah. She ran him through with a naginata energy blade. I managed to teleport him away after I put the fire out, which pretty much drained me, and I spent the rest of my energy making sure the baka didn't die on me, which is really hard, because I don't have healing magic, per se. And since she's a leech and she obviously survived the fire, she's still pulling all magic that isn't elemental away from him. "

"Young one," Hizashi said, "why drive here instead of asking for a teleport, if the two are so injured and exhausted?"

'Because then you would have found Mischa and killed her for going rogue.' But the kit didn't say that. "He said he'd be fine. And if the wound hadn't gotten worse, he probably would have. But it did, and we were practically in an accident when he blacked out! I don't know how to drive a motorcycle, but I can drive a Vespa, so I transmuted his- yet again depleting the energy I had built back up," she whined, "and oh boy is he going to kill me when he sees his bike."

"And I had such high hopes for them," Yoko lamented.

"They are very dutiful," Hizashi said doubtfully.

"If very stupid," Yoko griped.

Sesshoumaru merely shook his head.

"So, ah, what happened here?" Chame asked, noting the feel of purity surrounded by a miasma of death and darkness.

"A dragon decided the North was overpopulated," Sesshoumaru said.

"Oh."

The steady pink light from the miko disappeared and four heads looked expectantly at the young human.

"There's some kind of magic black hole in him that wasn't there before," she said, looking up. "It doesn't seem to like holy magic, so Mat-kun should be safe from it trying to drain him completely through his wounds. He's not going to be able to draw upon kitsune magic, though. But he should be okay."

"Should we continue this tonight or wait until tomorrow to give the younger ones a chance to regain their energy?" Yoko asked.

"It would be wise to let them rest. Perhaps with sleep will come intelligence, if not the ability to use common sense," Sesshoumaru said, one eye watching the youngest kitsune look over the melted slag that had once been a Vespa, which had once been a well cared for motorcycle.

"Then go collect your half-brother, and Hizashi, the orphan, and I will get my two. Miko," Yoko said to the decidedly confused girl, "do you have any problems with sleeping in beds that youkai now dead have slept in?"

Kagome pressed her lips into a thin line. "You shouldn't speak so flippantly about the dead. I'm not done convincing them to move on, and they're too newly dead to laugh about the matter. But that building there," she pointed to a small building, "is now on clean ground. We can sleep there without being troubled by the dead. Though I'm going to stay out here longer. I don't feel right leaving them like this."

Four youkai eyed the building warily. How clean was it? Too much holy magic in the air and they wouldn't be able to think from all the interference.

Chame, being the youngest and least important, had the dubious pleasure of walking into the building to test it, and by way of an answer, shifted into her fox form and settled down to sleep.

Hizashi and Sesshoumaru went to break apart Fukii and Inu-Yasha- actually, a three-person job, but Yoko was carrying his grandson into the building.

Kagome simply sat back and watch. She grinned. Wordless communication indeed. No wonder why most of the youkai she had met minced words. They normally didn't speak at all.

She was beginning to see double- living realm and the realm of the dead, and she knew she had duties to perform. A priestess would never leave souls- even youkai souls- tied to the places of their murders. It would be all too easy for the wrong person to come along and use them as power for dark spells.

Sighing, she again bowed her head in prayer.


	23. Twenty Two: Behind Enemy Lines

**Chapter Twenty-Two: Behind Enemy Lines**

"_It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, but that not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so if every planet in the universe has a population of zero, then the entire population of the universe must also be zero, and any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination."_

- Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

**-- Morning, May 23, Niigata, Japan --**

"What do you mean it's not the right time? You wait any fucking longer and he'll have succeeded in killing us, and he hasn't even been unbound yet, you fucking moron!"

"We cannot even be sure that he is truly the one behind the attacks."

"Just how fucking obvious does he have to be? Challenge you to a duel?"

"Maa, but he would stab Sesshoumaru in the back, not challenge him in a fair fight."

"You're the one letting him get away with it! Why did you have to wait until they were all dead before even admitting there was a problem? Or even telling me that I was being considered?"

"Who the fuck cares about the past reasons so long as they fucking stop making excuses now?"

"Little brother, you oversimplify matters."

"What did you expect of a hanyou?"

"Would you shut the fuck about that?"

"Would it kill you two to be polite for a change?"

Kagome was getting dizzy moving her head to look at each speaker as the comments flew around the circular table four youkai and one hanyou sat at. The only one missing was Matsuro- who was hopefully still sleeping. Even with her healing his wounds, he was still completely drained of magical energy and low on blood. Chame had been wearing more of it than he probably had left in him when he arrived last night.

She wasn't sure if the youkai would ever get around to discussing the matters they had met for in the first place. She sighed softly and looked over at the dark-haired girl sitting beside her. Chame caught her look and rolled her eyes.

"It's always like this. Hizashi-sama is smart and stays out of the whole thing. And my brother has never shown up before. Not that I went to all of these either, since I'm not really on the inheritance list."

"How do they get anything done?" Kagome asked.

"You're only hearing half the conversation, Shin-sama," the kitsune explained. "No matter what that chaos may look like, they're actually being pretty productive, considering the meeting only started last night. They'll have agreed to something by tomorrow morning."

"One of these days, you're going to have to teach me how they do it," Kagome said, leaning back against the wall.

"Not a chance," the kitsune said with a wide grin that didn't mask her seriousness from Kagome. "That's something a human, even one as gifted as you, would never be able to learn."

"Ah, but where's the fun in never trying?" A hoarse voice said from above them.

The two looked up to see a pale Matsuro looking down on them with amused violet eyes, his face partially hidden by the mass of red hair no longer tied back in a ponytail.

"Mat-kun!" Kagome said, hopping to her feet to scold the kitsune. "You need to be laying down! Or at least sitting down. Just because I healed that hole in your chest doesn't mean you're not suffering from blood loss."

"Well, now that you mention it, I am a little dizzy. Would you mind if I leaned on you?" Before giving her time to answer, the kitsune draped an arm across her shoulders and leaned heavily down on her. Kagome had to wrap her arm around him to keep from falling over from the sudden weight.

"Oi! Quit trying to get fucking sympathy gropes!"

Kagome giggled at the pause in the argument from the table for the hanyou to yell at Matsuro and gently pulled herself away from the pale redhead. She tugged at his arm to sit down with her.

"This one is pleased to finally meet Shippo's eldest while he is awake," Hizashi said from where she sat.

Matsuro flashed her a broad smile as he slid down the wall to sit next to Kagome. "If I had known the newest taiyoukai of the East was such a beauty, I would have shown up earlier."

Both Sesshoumaru and Yoko snorted.

"This one doubts that," she said, returning the smile.

"If we may get back to the subject at hand?" Yoko asked, flashing a look between his grandson and the phoenix.

Matsuro grinned unashamedly and Hizashi bowed her head in acquiescence.

"So, how do you feel really, Mat-kun?" Kagome asked.

"Light-headed. How did I end up here anyway?"

"That was me!" Chame chirped from the other side of Kagome.

"But you can't drive a motorcycle," Matsuro said, frowning around Kagome to his little sister.

Kagome wasn't sure whether to smile at the amusement of the upcoming blow-up or to look for cover.

Chame shifted nervously where she sat, black ears twitching as she tried to think of a way to avoid the question. Kagome pinched her sharply on her arm.

"Ouch!" Chame said, rubbing her arm. "I was going to tell him, you didn't need to pinch."

"Tell me what, kit-chan?" Matsuro's voice was its usual cheery tone, but neither girl bought it.

"Well, you sort of passed out halfway here, and I figured the fastest way to get you to someone who wouldn't ask questions was to just transmute your bike to something I could drive. Trying to drive with an unconscious passenger isn't fun, y'know, and I'm never doing it again."

"You transmuted my bike?"

"To a Vespa," Kagome explained, pretending not to see Chame's plaintive gaze begging her not to provide information. "Or at least that's what I think it was. I didn't get a really good look at it before it started melting."

Chame hid under Kagome's arm to avoid her brother's glare. "Melting?"

"I didn't mean to!" she wailed over the continuing argument between the five at the table. "You've got a sink on you and it kept pulling the magic out of my transmutation, and once I stopped feeding energy into keeping it a Vespa and keeping it running faster than it should, it practically exploded!"

Kagome could feel the rising anger of the redhead cut off. "What do you mean, there's a sink on me?"

Chame braved peeking around Kagome to look at her brother. "Why do you think you weren't healing?"

"Who would've been able to put a sink-" he stopped mid-sentence and his eyes flicked over to the youkai at the cluttered table, supposedly too caught up in their conversation to be paying attention to the trio.

"Bingo," Chame chirped. "You're royally screwed. Ain't nobody but a human going to get anywhere near you now."

Kagome wanted to ask who the two were talking about, but knew they wouldn't answer so long as there were eavesdroppers.

"Do you know how to take them off? I've never come across one before," Kagome asked, trying to subtly change their conversation away from the one they didn't want overheard.

"Not surprising," Matsuro said. "I'm over two hundred years old and have never come across someone who made sinks. Though I suppose they could," he said, motioning towards the table, where Sesshoumaru had partially turned his head to look at the trio out of the corner of one golden eye. The kitsune on either side of her put on their most guileless, innocent smiles and Kagome bit her lip to keep from smiling herself. "Otherwise, they're pretty much a lost art. I'm sure they're dying to know how I got one on me." Sesshoumaru turned his head back to the quiet voice of Hizashi.

"This one feels the best way to prevent his escape is to return the form he took to its proper owner."

"And you do not think that bringing two such highly powerful youkai into close proximity itself will not provide enough power to undo the seal?"

"We all reinforce the seal periodically, and if he feels that he needs the Shikon no Tama, Sesshoumaru, it is unlikely just the two of them will provide enough power."

Kagome knew she had been had. Had she not asked Yoko to take her here, to find out what had happened to her aunt, the youkai would have found a reason to take her anyway. The youkai who wanted her were in Tokyo, and if Yoko was not there, he could not keep an eye on the dragon and his subordinates. And the two hanyou who had gotten it in their heads to keep an eye on her would not be there as well, even if Mischa hadn't gone rogue.

Kagome had the idea that since Mischa hadn't shown up, the trio of taiyoukai at the table knew she had gone rogue. Or else had died. But a priestess would know when someone close to her had died, Kagome reassured herself. So Mischa wasn't dead, just either rogue or tied up somewhere.

Sometime during her musings, the two kitsune had gotten comfortable and looked as though they had fallen into a seemingly light sleep. Chame had burrowed into Kagome's side, underneath an arm Kagome didn't remember moving, ears twitching ever so slightly. Kagome bit her lip to stifle the giggle at the feel of fur on her arm. Matsuro had his arms crossed over his chest, head bowed, bangs obscuring his features. Kagome thought she had seen a stripe of green on his face, before the light breeze blew his hair to cover it.

Mischa's warnings about kitsune were overblown anyway, she thought with a grin. They were just overly affectionate and if there was one thing Mischa hated, it was to be touched. Though she put up with it from her family.

Even with a long night's rest, the two were still exhausted. Chame was just trying to rebuild the stores of energy she had had merely days before. Kagome couldn't think up enough things the kitsune could have done to so completely drain herself. Then she realized that Chame had had a five-hour drive here on a motorcycle, in physical contact with a youki sink. She had no doubt the kit had overexerted herself even before then, but the sink certainly did not help matters.

Matsuro was still very pale, though not the sheet-white he had been when she had healed the hole someone had put through his chest. When she had first started healing it, she had noticed that one of his lungs had been pierced, but had had a patch job put over it. Probably Chame, since the magic was demonic in origin and the sink had been pulling it away. Matsuro had no idea how lucky he was. If Chame hadn't patched it, with his magic not working, he would have drowned in his own blood. And if Kagome had healed him much later, the wound would have continued to grow, quickly bleeding him dry.

"Should we do something about the children? He has got the four completely wrapped around his finger, doing everything he says, even though they know what he is."

"The young are easily influenced by fear. The death of the Western dragoness destroyed much of their spirit. The oldest two are complete sadists, the younger two little better."

Kagome shifted slightly where she sat and watched the five.

Fukii was not the same wolf youkai she had met earlier. The smart-mouthed, curious personality was weighed down by the same oppressive feeling Kagome had felt when Yoko had first teleported her in. She was curled into herself at the chair where she sat, eyes focused on the papers on the table, even her shoulder-length orange-red hair drooping unhappily. The only real interaction she had was to tilt her head up to tease Inu-Yasha.

The familiar bead-and-tooth necklace the hanyou wore in Tokyo was gone, pale blonde hair changed to an unnatural silvery white, almost identical to the tall man beside him. The eyes that kept moving to look in the trio of onlookers' direction were dark gold. Kagome could faintly remember meeting someone with the same unusual eye color, but it had been years. Hadn't it? Beside the taller taiyoukai, Inu-Yasha looked rather short, though Kagome knew him to be noticeably taller than her.

Looking at the two brothers, it was a bit like looking at fire and ice. Sesshoumaru was like Mischa- cool, silent, and unreadable. Though, she mused, if Mischa thought she had an audience, she would try to be more open in her body language. Inu-Yasha was more like her- loud, temperamental, and annoyed at people who wouldn't say what they meant. She had better manners and cleaner language though, she thought with a grin.

Her gaze moved to the smiling redhead. It hadn't taken her very long for her to realize kitsune would probably smile while slitting someone's throat, and she wondered how long it would take for her to learn how to read their smiles. He didn't look much older than his grandson. Though everyone here- even Chame, _**especially**_ Chame- had eyes much too old for their appearance. Yoko, even with that ever-present smile, had the look of someone who had watched the rise and fall of many a human civilization. Listening to him speak, though, he sounded like any other young human, albeit one who spoke formally.

The fifth member of the table was another redhead. Kagome was by now convinced that red was the most common youkai hair color. Though the winged woman's hair was much more vivid than the other three. Her hair made Yoko's look brown and Fukii's orange. And the way it haloed around her face in curls reminded Kagome of camping trips and watching the fire dance and writhe as the campers continued to toss sticks into it to build it higher. To her surprise, the woman's fiery hair was a complete, well, _red_ herring. Hizashi spoke only slightly more frequently that Mischa would have, had she been there, and whenever the raised voices of Fukii and Inu-Yasha became too loud, she would actually cringe. Yet another youkai Kagome wondered about age with. The way Sesshoumaru and Yoko acted towards her told Kagome that the winged woman had more going for her than just her looks, but she looked so hesitant about everything. She probably wasn't much older than Matsuro.

She let the melody of voices sweep over her, ignoring the actual words and just concentrated on the feel of the sounds and the color and swirl of auras as they spoke. And she could almost hear what Chame meant when she said Kagome was only hearing half the conversation. It was like listening and trying to translate French when you only spoke Spanish. You could almost understand what was being said, but not quite.

And what it sounded like- with the words stripped away, and only the timbre of their voices, the expressions of their mostly unreadable faces, the way they leaned towards or away from each other, subtly vying for control of the conversation, and the way their auras all held bits of nervousness, anger, determination- was not good at all.

Just like you would catch a word in another language that meant the same thing in your language, Kagome understood something of what was being said underneath the banter. It was only Chame's imperceptible touch suddenly becoming a tight grip of her leg that kept Kagome from getting up and storming off.

"Ne, Kagome-sama," Matsuro said, one eye opening to look over at Kagome. "They're not talking about you. Stop worrying."

With the exception of Sesshoumaru, who had his back to them, the youkai at the table had turned their attention to the trio. Matsuro simply closed his eye to go back to resting and ignored the looks. Chame's grip of her leg loosened, but still was tight enough to remind the young miko that she was in the presence of the youkai equivalent of kings and she needed to watch what she said. Kagome was too irritated to do anything but glare. Fukii's eyes remained blandly confused, while Hizashi and Yoko simply smiled, and Inu-Yasha looked irritated and about to comment. He had already opened his mouth when Sesshoumaru cut him off.

"Would he not suspect something is wrong? They have ignored the Summons before. Coming this time is suspicious."

"And there is still Kouga to find," Hizashi added.

Kagome still wasn't convinced they weren't making plans concerning her. After all, they were probably used to asking her aunt to do things for them, and Yoko had tricked her into coming. She didn't even know where she was in relation to the rest of the world.

"So then who are they talking about?" she asked, watching Yoko scribbling on a paper, then sliding it across the table for the others to see.

Matsuro hummed softly. "Much as it pains me to admit it, Inu-Yasha _is_ correct in saying that the current taiyoukai families are close to extinction. They're making plans to punish the one who's been doing it."

He hadn't answered her question, evading it by answering with something she could have figured out for herself. "Why haven't they done anything before?"

Matsuro remained silent.

Kagome was more than a little irritated. She had come here to get information, only to discover everyone wanted her in the dark. Then she remembered the two kitsune discussing who had placed the sink on Matsuro, and she realized that they might answer her questions, but not while the taiyoukai could overhear them.

Stomping off really was the best thing to do. They would send someone after her, and she would corner them and get them to tell her what she wanted to know.

"Would it kill you to answer a single question?" she hissed at a surprised Matsuro. She got up to her feet, ignoring Chame's unintelligible noise of complaint at the sudden loss of a pillow. "Just quit it with your stupid mind games. I didn't come here to be toyed with. My family's in _danger_, and unlike you, they don't have forever." She stormed off.

The three taiyoukai exchanged glances. The other four simply stared after her, wondering what the hell that was about.

"Inu-Yasha, go get her," Sesshoumaru ordered.

"What? Why me? They're the ones who pissed her off," he complained, pointing at the two kitsune.

Matsuro grinned. "I would love to go after the woman. They're so much fun when they're emotionally flailing like this, it makes it all the more easier to calm them down and let you-"

Chame by this time had sat up, and poked two fingers into Matsuro's side to halt the babble. "Brother, she's not going to give you sympathy sex." She scooted further away as the sink responded to her touch and reached out to pull energy from her.

"Ah, but it doesn't hurt to ask," Matsuro said, grinning down at her, then looking back to where Inu-Yasha was.

He was already gone.

Sesshoumaru looked bored, Yoko gave his grandson a knowing smile, and Hizashi merely sighed.

"Ki," Hizashi said, trying to gain the blank-eyed girl's attention. Blue eyes slowly moved to meet the phoenix's own orange ones. "This one thinks it best that a resident of the farm tallies the damages made by the fight. It would be best to take the young one with you. Ki should not be left alone right now."

Chame and Matsuro exchanged looks. The taiyoukai wanted to talk with Matsuro, and until they found Kouga, there was little Fukii would be allowed to do. And they didn't want Chame overhearing the conversation either.

Fukii silently nodded and got to her feet, glancing over to where the kitsune sat. Chame stuck her tongue out at Matsuro and left with the taller girl. Matsuro stood and slowly made his way over to the table. The three took pains to keep distance between themselves and him.

"So what would you like to know first?" he asked with a sigh.

**-- Elsewhere --**

If it wasn't one thing, it was something else. First there was the boy, then there was the cage where she was supposedly stripped of any ability to use holy magic, and now she was trying to stare down a man she had only seen in photographs.

She wasn't sure how long they had been like this. She wasn't quite sure what had happened to the rest of her either. Instead, brown kept contact with red as both willed the other to break first.

He broke first, probably overjoyed at finally having someone to talk to.

"What year is it?"

She blinked slowly, caught off-guard by the non sequitur. "Two thousand and two." She waited for him to explain.

He merely hummed, and started counting fingers. After a time, he said, "One hundred and fifteen."

"Years?"

"Aa," he agreed. "That is how long it has been since I have seen anybody since my brother became partially released from where the inu no taishou bound him."

She simple stared at him. Brother? Bound by the former taiyoukai of the West? Ancient news, as the inuyoukai had been dead for over six hundred years, from wounds received in battle with... a dragon.

She gave him another long, impassive blink. That dragon had had a younger brother. Who currently had her problem of not inhabiting a body. Which meant that the dragon everyone had known for over a century had been someone completely different. Someone who had had to be sealed by the strongest taiyoukai since the four families had taken control from their predecessors in the realm of the gods.

He waited as she continued to process information.

She couldn't figure in the Shikon no Tama. It was important, or else the imposter would not be after it. Unless he just wanted them to think he was after it.

No, someone was certainly trying to destroy the family. Her mother had spoken of the family records, how only the firstborn, always a son, for the past four or five generations, would live to childbearing age.

Which, if she did the math right, was just a bit over a century. It could not be a coincidence. And what was so important about the family but the Shikon no Tama? Certainly not herself, nor their ability to produce an elementalist or a priestess in every generation. There were still a few other families whose blood was not so thin that they could not do it as well.

"And you have never tried to escape?" she finally asked.

He gave an indelicate snort. "Little girl, do you know anything about youkai and energy?"

Quite a bit, actually. But she shook her head.

"Youkai constantly build up energy," he said. "If we get too full, the results can be disastrous. So we find things to release the energy into. Fast-healing, super human senses, immortality, magic. Anything to keep from storing too much energy. The stronger a youkai is, the more he can hold without harm to himself. The taiyoukai possess the ability to contain an infinite amount of energy, and can draw on it at will. The rest of us are not so lucky, with a few very rare exceptions. My brother is one of them. His physical form is currently sealed, keeping it so that he will not age and decay, nor move, nor even be awake. Without him using the energy he is continually storing, it is simply growing larger and larger."

She had never heard about a seal doing that, but she didn't know much about them. Magic didn't interest her.

"So ever since he has been bound-" she started.

"I doubt even a single taiyoukai could kill him if he managed to break free. And he does want to break free. He is doing everything within his power to use my body to find a way to free his. And you think I am so powerful that I may wrench control away from him? Little girl, where do you think we are?"

She gave the void a quick once-over. Something in her said purgatory, or else limbo, but she had no idea and made no move to reply.

"We are where he is sealed. He has stolen your mind from your form and placed you behind the very seal that keeps him captive. The seal is perfect, the taiyoukai make it so. It was pure luck that an uncontrolled release of holy powers cracked the seal enough to let him get a piece of his mind past. I had less of a chance of stopping him than you would keeping a falling building from collapsing on you."

How was she supposed to get out of this? The other didn't seem in any hurry to look for cracks in the seal- not that she knew how, and he looked as though he had already spent decades looking. This really was not the place where two heads were better than one. This was just where there were now two people being screwed over instead of one.

"So who are you, anyway? You have the oddest assortment of magic collected about you that I have ever seen. Kitsune, wolf, miko, dragon, elemental..." his voice trailed off, and his red eyes continued to follow lines of magic over her.

She didn't know half of what she had managed to get on her while her demon blood controlled her.

"I'm a Meirin," she said shortly.

"Well, that explains the human magic, but certainly not the youkai," he said. "Although, thinking about it, it explains the dragon. Do you even know what all is on you?"

"The dragon energy is most recent. Suppresses miko powers," she said, holding out her wrists to draw his attention to a pair of dark-lit energy bracelets.

"The holy power does not seem to be yours," he thought aloud, eyes moving to the dog tags that she hadn't gotten around to putting back underneath her shirt.

"The holy magic is a seal," she explained.

He continued to study her. "My brother places you behind a seal, with a back-up seal preventing your use of holy powers. This means he believes you to be a miko, which you are not. This leads me to believe that you must have another family member who is a miko, who was whom he was trying to capture. She, in turn, does not trust something about you. Interesting."

She stared impassively at him. He, in turn, continued to stare at her.

"Meirin. It would be very easy to blame you for this entire thing, considering it was your ancestor who accidentally released my brother's spirit."

She shrugged. She didn't particularly care in knowing how this had happened, simply how to get out of it.

"I think I know what it is. You are hanyou. The human magic is your own, the miko magic perhaps a cousin's or a mother's, the dragon's is mostly accidental, and the kitsune... You do not have the right temperament for one, leading me to believe the wolf must be yours and the kitsune is somehow tied to you. Though it is unwinding itself from you," he said with a frown.

She looked down at her hands and squinted, trying to see what the magic was that he saw, but it didn't work.

"How fascinating. Should you ever manage to escape, that wolf magic is going to snap back at you like a bowstring."

Her eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"That is the magic of the taiyoukai Summons. You must still be a child, since the only hanyou I know of related to the taiyoukai is a dog. But that is beside the point."

Her lips quirked as she fought back the urge to agree with him and tell him to get to the point.

"The point is," he said in response to her unspoken request, "You are ignoring a Summons. The longer you ignore it, the more likely it is to kill you. The taiyoukai are unforgiving to the tardy." He sighed. "Looks like the company will not be here long," he said to himself, ignoring her 'what a moron' look.

"I'd imagine not," a third voice said. "I'm getting tired of saving her sorry ass."

She jumped three feet into the air, while the shocked dragon fell onto his face as he tried to jump up from where he sat. Both looked at the third person that had materialized a short distance away.

Mischa recognized herself immediately.

**-- Late Morning, May 23, Tokyo, Japan --**

Kurosawa Daisetsu was well known within the right circles as the man to speak to if you wanted to get information to Kino Hachiro. No one was quite sure how involved the twenty-six year old was in his boss's business, but even youkai knew the human knew much more than any of the dragon's other underlings.

The closest anyone could come to explaining it was that it was because of the human's complete incompetence concerning anything of a magical nature that allowed the dragon to trust him with things. Some privately thought the human was actually a sealed hanyou, thus explaining the inaptitude and the black hole he was for magic, but those who knew the man knew differently.

Magic reacted weirdly around hanyou, for any who had ever tried to use it on them. But with Daisetsu, magic simply stopped and dissipated when it hit him. A veritable black hole. And it was this unconscious and uncontrollable ability of his that left even Kino Hachiro keeping note of the man.

Not to mention the man's complete indifference to anything that may happen and his complete control of the security force he was supposedly simply a technician for. Daisetsu's true love was electronics, but whenever something attracted his attention away from the monitor, it was always sure to be bad news for somebody.

However Daisetsu was still only human and still completely incompetent in dealing with emotions. Having a borderline obsession with Hibiki Fujiko was proof of that, but he liked to think he had little choice in the matter. She was the only other human around him on a regular basis. Though she was too clueless to realize most of her coworkers were demons.

"Kurosawa."

Daisetsu hit the pause button and looked up from the security video he had been watching. A green-haired man about his own age was leaning on the doorframe.

"Still looking for the spook?"

"Yes. I'm still not certain how she-"

"Don't bother complaining to me about it. You're the one who's got to explain it to Father how someone knew the blind spots of our security cameras without ever entering the building before."

"Then what was it you wanted?"

The green-haired man grinned. "Have you seen Ayame-chan lately? She missed dinner last night and breakfast this morning."

Daisetsu shrugged. "Not since yesterday afternoon, when she and Kino-sama had an argument about obsessing over mortals and something about a kagami."

The grin that spread across the other man's face was one Daisetsu didn't want to see again. "Eavesdropping again, Kurosawa?"

The dark-haired man shrugged nonchalantly. "In my position, it pays to know more than people expect you to know."

"And thus why I ask you if you've seen Ayame-chan. Was it that human Father brought in earlier they were arguing about?"

"Most likely. And in case you're wondering, the shrine is closed for business today, even though it's not Sunday. And nobody has been there since the younger sibling left yesterday afternoon."

Yes, that smile was definitely one he did not like to see. "Makes you suspicious about Ayame-chan, doesn't it?"

"If it was anybody else, perhaps. But she's never gone against Kino-sama in the time I've been here."

"Ah, but you're mortal and haven't been here long. Though you're right, she does as he asks. Nobody can get her to do something like he can. Though his means of obtaining this ability were a bit extreme, even by youkai standards." Red eyes narrowed into a glare as he raised his head to look at the ceiling.

There was much Daisetsu wanted to know. What is was Kino was looking for and for what purposes. When Fujiko would realize that all the men she found remotely attractive were youkai born well before the foundation of the Tokugawa shogunate. When the next jump in the stock market would be. But knowledge about how Kino reigned in his otherwise contrary daughter? That he did not want to know.

"Was there anything else you wanted to know?"

"Could you pass along the information that Ayame-chan is missing to my father? He doesn't seem to want visitors right now. High-class magic is going on in there and he doesn't want anyone seeing what he's working on. He's less likely to hurt you than he is me for intruding."

"I think it's because I don't heal as fast as you do."

"Or it could just be because he's only got one of you and three sons."

The technician grinned. "I'll pass it along when he isn't likely to melt me into the carpet."

The green-haired man nodded in acceptance of the delay. "Gotten Fuji-chan to accept your offer of dinner yet?"

Daisetsu's eyes remained bland. "Taken her up on her offer of dinner yet?"

"I eat humans, not eat _with_ them."

Daisetsu blinked. "If you were Kino-sama, I'd be worried about that."

"Good thing none of us are like him, ne? There'd be no mortals left to play with."

"Frankly, I find his blunt approach to destroying mankind much safer than yours. At least we know how we're going to die with him."

"Ah, but you'll die anyway, what does it matter how or when?" The man stood up from where he leaned against the door. "Good luck with that spook, Kurosawa. Father may be less likely to eat you if you bring him good news."

Daisetsu remained silent as the door closed quietly behind the young dragon.

"Gods, but that entire family creeps me out," he said, attention returning to the screen. "The girl's the sanest of the bunch, and she still can't even get my name right. It isn't 'oi, dark guy.' Kurosawa. Not dark guy."

He hit the play button and returned to figuring out how Shinin had managed to piss off someone who knew how to find camera blind spots and how to fix the blind spots.

He wondered if he should have told the dragon that the last he had seen of Higurashi Souta had been him buying two train tickets. No guesses necessary on whom the other ticket was meant for. He wondered what was in Maebashi that had caused Ayame to work up her nerve to go against her father's wishes to keep away from the teenager.

Then he decided it didn't really matter so long as it didn't somehow get him in trouble.

The black and white tape continued to play, and he paused it when the shadow became a face, smirking directly at the camera. He knew that face. Recognized it from somewhere.

One of his little sister's friends? He could have sworn those three were human.

Fact. The spook snuck in, stole Higurashi Souta, even with the increase in security.

Fact. Souta was Higurashi Kagome's younger brother.

Fact. Kagome was close friends with his little sister Eri, and he had met the girl upon occasion.

Fact. The woman smirking in the still frame was not Kagome.

Fact. There was a family resemblance.

His attention turned to another screen, and he pulled up files, seemingly at random. He stopped at a family tree that traced back well over two thousand years. It was the latest generation he was interested in. At the very bottom of an interestingly straight line, a small grouping of names drew his attention.

Meirin Aiko, thirty-eight, married to Higurashi Tetsuo, fifteen years dead. Two children, Kagome, twenty, and Souta, fifteen.

And beside that, Meirin Mikomi, deceased, married to Shinji, no family name, deceased. He paused, reading the date, not recalling being the one updating the file. One of the sons- the middle one, what's-his-name, who had come back more dead than alive, the other youkai who had gone with him quite dead. My, but youkai could certainly move quickly when they wanted to, he thought wryly. The two weren't even forty-eight hours dead and their status was changed. His boss certainly was keeping tabs on them.

And beneath those names, Meirin Mischando, twenty-five. Footnotes told him that Shinji was a wolf youkai and his daughter was hanyou.

Well, well, well. A rogue hanyou. He had good news for his boss. The spook had been identified, and the taiyoukai would take care of the problem for them. After all, a hanyou who was stupid and weak enough to let their demon blood take over would not live very long, once the taiyoukai learned of it.

Too bad the killings had stopped and no one would know where she was now. He would have to think about this more.


	24. Twenty Three: Tormented Pasts

Chapter Twenty-Three: Tormented Pasts 

"_Know thyself? A maxim as pernicious as it is ugly. Whoever observes himself arrests his own development. A caterpillar who wanted to know itself well would never become a butterfly."_

-Andre Gide

**-- Morning, May 23, Niigata, Japan --**

Kagome sat cross-legged before a large hollow in the ground that she assumed had once been a lake. Her eyes were closed, her breathing regular. Most people would assume that she was sleeping. But meditation was best done with closed eyes, and Kagome didn't care what people thought. Just so long as she could regain control of her still-whirling emotions and powers.

She had been thrust from her familiar linear world into a strange nonlinear one where her vision swam between ghosts of the pasts and images of the futures.

Meditation was slowly helping to calm the unexpected gift, but Kagome knew that it would only last as long as she remained calm. And she did not like the stillness of serenity that much.

She took a deep breath and opened her eyes.

_She was shoved roughly away. "Don't touch me."_

_The young junior high student took the words in her usual cheerful stride. "Ne, Mi-chan, don't be so mean! It's just showing you that I love you and you're family and I'll never abandon you." She stopped as blue eyes flashed dangerously silver._

"_Empty words, Higurashi." The college student grabbed the bag she had dropped when the fourteen-year-old had given her a surprise glomp. Mischa slung the bag over one shoulder and began to stalk off._

_Kagome could feel tears welling in her eyes. Mischa hadn't called her Higurashi in **months** and here she was again, retreating back into her shell of silence and aloofness over a simple hug. "Who hurt you so badly you can't even accept a hug?" she asked hoarsely._

_Mischa stopped, back still towards Kagome. She could see her cousin rub her throat unconsciously. "Ever left a five-year-old alone?"_

"_What?"_

_Mischa seemed to notice her hand's movement, and pulled it away from her neck to stuff into a pocket. "It's not important." She resumed her fast stalk away from the girl._

Too soon, too soon. Kagome snapped her eyes shut. She could still hear whispers of other conversations with Mischa that had left her more confused than when she had started out. Come to think of it, she had never managed to get Mischa to come close to talking about it again. She focused on regaining her balance.

She had only once been this overloaded by her senses. The first day her powers had awakened. She had been thrust from nonmagical world to one where spirits walked alongside the living, and demons slinked in the shadows, circling, waiting for a show of weakness.

_A loud splash of water from where there was a hollow in the ground- still smoking ever so slightly from overheated earth and water evaporation. Loud gasps of breath and malicious laughter. "A bath won't clean away your filth, abomination."_

Her eyes snapped open, trying to escape the voices.

_A woman stood facing the lake, dark hair slipping free of the long braid she wore it in. A handsome dark-haired man clad only in loose brown trousers and an open vest walked up to her, black tail swishing mischievously._

"_Come here often?"_

_She didn't turn around. "I had hoped youkai pick-up lines would be better than humans, but it seems my hopes were in vain."_

_The dark-haired man grinned as he stood beside her to look out across the lake, stuffing his hands into his pockets. "I was trying to make you feel more at ease."_

"_You need not worry about me. Peace of mind comes in time."_

"_You're going about this all the wrong way. It's not the end of the world, just the end of your single life. And face it, it's not like you had much of one."_

"_Your complete lack of tact leaves me breathless, Shinji," she said, face turning to look at the man._

_He shrugged in an amused manner. "You get used to it."_

_She turned back to watch the sun set on the lake. "One can only hope."_

She closed her eyes. She realized what was happening. They were place memories. She had picked a meditation spot unwisely. Too much had happened here for her not to be able to see and hear what had happened here over the centuries. If she gave it enough time, meditated long enough, she could keep the flow of vision to a minimum. Or she could open her eyes and make a break for it.

_"Power comes to those who have the will to take it. Do not listen to the miko's nonsense about power going where it wills. It goes where **you** will, Ki," a faintly familiar masculine voice said. "Now try to summon her again."_

She repressed the urge to open her eyes to escape that voice. There were too many things that were familiar when they shouldn't be.

She knew that she had known Inu-Yasha before she saw him with Mischa. And she also knew that she had never seen the hanyou before in her life.

Illusions, though. He had been too familiar with his knowledge of her family to have not been around them for some time. But he had never actually approached them. She would have sensed it.

Familiar and unfamiliar. Her eyes opened. And she was once again transported into the history of the lake, surrounded by thick fields.

_A tall woman with midnight black hair and tail, clad in a formal pale green kimono with a dark green leaf pattern tracing along the sleeves and skirt, stood facing the water now, watching a handsome man with wavy black hair stride across the water towards the bank she stood upon._

"_What are you doing here, hanyou?" She asked curtly._

_Red eyes glinted maliciously as he stepped onto dry land. He shrugged gracefully. "Just looking around before I move in."_

"_You have no chance in hell of achieving your wishes. Leave."_

_The man continued to walk towards the woman. "Ah, but you have no power over me, Northerner. We hanyou are immune to magic."_

_The ground underneath him disappeared as blazing blue eyes flashed silver. Only quick reflexes kept him from falling into the endless chasm that had sprouted beneath him. _

_She chuckled darkly as he struggled to regain his footing on water on the opposite side of the chasm. "Immune? You are not immune. I must simply attack through a different manner."_

_His head swung to the side as a small circular blade whirled through the air towards him and then back to the woman's waiting hand. A small cut opened on the side of his cheek. Even as the flesh healed, the blood slid slowly down his face._

"_These are not your lands, nor will they ever be. This is my final offer before I tear you to shreds."_

_Already, the water he was standing on was forming a translucent bubble around him, holding him captive inside. He swung his hand viciously through the liquid, and the bubble collapsed._

"_Your efforts are pitiful," he said as the water cascaded back downward into the water, soaking him._

"_Then why have you still not moved?" She asked shrewdly._

_He grimaced. Steam started rising from both him and the water as he raised his body temperature, evaporating the suddenly adhesive water. As soon as the water finished evaporating, he leapt across the chasm towards the woman. With a simple sweep of her arm, she sent him spinning off to the side, where he landed easily on his feet._

"_Shall we go at this for real?" She asked._

"_You will fall," he said in tacit agreement._

Kagome snapped her eyes shut as the man sent a slew of tentacles right towards where she stood.

And she was surrounded by the blessed sounds of only the present reality, and none of the voices of the past.

**-- Maebashi, Japan --**

Souta had absolutely no idea where Ayame was leading him. He wasn't too worried- the playful spring air that whipped around them as they trekked up the mountain path held no feelings of obvious danger. There was a strange hint of _something_, but it didn't feel too dangerous.

Ayame was growing more nervous as they walked in silence. It wasn't obvious to anyone who didn't know her, but Souta knew that the knowledge that she was a demon didn't mean she would change overnight. After all, it wasn't like she had become a demon overnight, simply that he had found out that she had always been one. Ayame remained Ayame, no matter what other title was given to her.

"Ne, Souta-kun, I should probably warn you that I can sense my brothers where we're going," she finally said, breaking the somewhat uncomfortable silence.

"Is that a problem?" he asked.

"My brothers are decidedly youkai," she said, giving him a look out of the corner of her eye as they continued to walk. "They'll probably want to know if I prefer you marinated or grilled."

Souta looked a little ill. "Please tell me you didn't mean that literally."

"Very literally," she said in a clinical monotone. "It wouldn't be a problem if you were youkai- because then you'd be of a more equivalent status, or hanyou- which they say gives them indigestion. They're really quite fun," she said with a smile.

"Unless you're human," he said, the cool mountain air dropping in temperature.

"Well, yeah." She gave him a look that said she thought along the same lines as her brothers, but was making an exception for him.

"I don't suppose there's anything to convince them that I'm not their morning snack?" he asked hopefully.

"I'll just tell them that you're dinner," she said with a wink.

"I'm too scrawny to be anything but a snack," he said as he grinned back at her, the air around them warming. "Tell them you're fattening me up for Christmas dinner."

"Birthday present for Father," she argued.

"Birthday present for you," he shot back.

"Do I get to unwrap you too?" she asked, her illusion slipping to show a grin too full of sharp teeth to be human.

"Only if you've been really good," he said with a leer.

She stopped walking to laugh and, after a short pause, he did too.

"I'll just tell them who your sister is and they'll back off some," she said, as their laughter died down to giggles. "No one in their right mind messes with a miko unless they've got at least four other youkai. Spread her attention, you know."

"I'd rather not hear youkai strategies for killing priestesses, thanks," he said, wrinkling his nose and returning to his trek.

"You should, you know," Ayame said, catching up to him easily. "That way you'll have time to think up ways to counteract it."

"Because an air apprentice can so easily defeat a youkai," Souta said snidely.

"Stranger things have happened. My brother told me about this monk he met who was an air elementalist, specializing in vacuums."

"How's that work?" he asked, interested despite himself.

"He had a hole in his hand that created a vicious wind that sucked all things in the near vicinity into it. Probably ended up drawing himself into it from overuse, but you know, up until that happened it was probably useful," she said with a mischievous grin.

He groaned. "That doesn't make it any better. As if the wind trying to talk to me isn't enough."

"It what?" Ayame said.

"It tries to talk to me," he repeated with annoyance. "It's constantly bringing conversations into my hearing range, or hiding me from others' sense of smell and hearing, and jeez, what do you think it's doing now?" The wind had increased, swirling around him and then racing uphill.

Ayame was so startled she tripped and only Souta's hand grabbing her arm kept her from falling on her face.

"Souta-kun," she said, regaining her balance, "the elements don't have minds. They don't talk and they don't show initiative or do anything of their own free will. You're obviously doing something to it."

"Am not," he said indignantly. "Sensei does-" The teen stopped as the wind raced back towards him, swirling around him to slow itself. His teacher had been very explicit that Souta spoke nothing of him, beyond the fact that yes, he did have someone teaching him magic.

"What does he do?" Ayame asked, red eyes bright with curiosity.

"Never mind," he sighed. When are we going to get there?" he asked, blatantly changing the topic. The look in the dragon's bright eyes said that she would not forget the question and evasion.

"Well-" she began, but stopped, staring as they rounded a copse of trees.

"Well?" he repeated, following her gaze.

A pair of men sat on tree stumps before a huge cliff that seemed to rise forever. Subtly coursing through the cliff face was the serpentine shape of a huge dragon. A huge ledge looked as though it had been thrust into the cliff face- Souta thought it looked remarkably like a monster-sized shark tooth that had been broken off when its owner had bit the rocks. The men stood to walk towards the pair.

Souta thought the two looked remarkably similar, though he didn't see Ayame's resemblance to them, beyond the fact all three had the same crimson eyes. Both stood well over six foot. Their hair was practically buzz cut, and Souta could faintly make out that only the tips of the spikes were green, and their roots were white. Both were dressed in gray and green- the one in a formal kimono, the other in loose drawstring pants and pullover. Deep gashes ran across all of their exposed skin, though it appeared that the cuts had finished scabbing over. The one in the pullover walked with a decided limp, while the other's left arm hung awkwardly down his side as he matched his mirror's pace. As they got closer, he could see that both had the same green-hued ear frills as Ayame. Neither showed signs of having a tail or wings, though he hadn't expected wings. Ayame didn't usually have them either.

Something about the way the two dragons looked told Souta that he didn't want to see the shape the other guy had been in. Though it was more likely there had been more than just one opponent. The way the two held themselves- even covered with bloody wounds that he was sure was supposed to have been healed, unless the two had been in much worse shape- said they could hold their own against multiple combatants without ever getting hit. They had the same feel to them that Yoshi did, except even stronger- it would take an army to take them down. Souta had a sickening feeling that there were a great deal less youkai in the world than there had been before the fight those two had gotten in.

"Well, well, well. If it isn't little Aya-chan," the one in the kimono said.

"Surprised to see you coming here," the other continued.

"This being the only place possible to hide from Father."

By this time, the two had reached the still teens. "And look, you even brought us breakfast!"

"Thoughtful of you," the kimono-clad man said, looking Souta over with a gleam in his eye that Souta was quite certain had everything to do with hunger for food and nothing else.

"How did you hear about us getting the tar beat out of us, anyway?"

"I bet it was Saburo."

"He would be the one to have the wings to get back to Tokyo," the casually dressed limper said.

Souta debated trying to ask the wind to shut the pair of them up. Because the quick interchange between the two was practically a monologue. Ayame's face held something else in it- she knew her brothers better. The cheery little breeze had stilled, and Souta felt a pang of abandonment.

"Do you suppose he'll taste better grilled or marinated?"

If Souta hadn't been so frozen from Ayame's warnings, he probably would've laughed- albeit slightly hysterically- at the repetition of Ayame's words.

The question seemed to bring the girl back to her senses, and she swatted at one's hand as he reached towards the nervous boy. "Hey, get your own damn food. I found him first," she said in an irritated tone.

The two men exchanged looks and gave their sister identical knowing smiles.

Souta didn't feel relieved and started subtly inching away from the trio of green-haired dragons.

"You're going to get in trouble for bringing a human here," the one in the kimono said.

"You're going to get in trouble just for being here," Ayame snapped back. "What are you doing here, Ichiro? This place is off limits to everyone."

"You included," the second said.

"Face it, Aya-chan, this is the best place to come if you don't want him to find you."

The soft breeze that had followed him from the train station was mostly still, but he could feel it following him, keeping a faint shield of silence around him. The two men couldn't see him, and with their tall forms blocking him from Ayame's sight, she couldn't either.

Souta was out of arm's reach, and approached the cliff face openly. It was obvious this was what she had brought him here to see. She had been too surprised at realizing her brothers were here as well for them to be who she had wanted him to see.

The cliff face bristled with magic. Souta had never been around a great deal of magic- just odd senses from people that said _they_ could learn, or _she_ did know, or that _he_ was just a hack. And the ever-present breezes that would follow him like lost puppies, even into buildings and trains. But otherwise, there wasn't much magic around him. And even if he combined the powers he had felt from all those people, they would never equal the huge amount of power that inhabited the mountain.

And standing in its presence, even if he hadn't quite caught on to what Ayame wanted him to see, he had learned something. This power was what kept Mischa paranoid about lurkers in the shadows. This power was what had caused Ayame to try and break things off with him- either of her own volition or someone's orders, he didn't know. This power had caused a strange shift in current events- Ayame revealing herself as youkai, Inu-Yasha following Kagome around, the kitsune who had taken over the living room couch, his kidnapping... Something about the way people reacted to this power- knowingly or not- had caused it.

It was rather intoxicating just being in its presence. It explained a bit of his friend's obsession with getting ahead in the world. Getting ahead in the world meant someday approaching the amount of power held here.

Dimly he heard, "Okay, Aya-chan, enough teasing. Why, of all people you could risk Father's wrath for, did you decide upon him?"

Souta was a mere arm's length away from the cliff face. The dragon-shape in it seemed almost to be watching him. The puppy-like breeze stilled in anticipation, for what he wasn't sure.

Souta reached a hesitant hand out towards it. Amber and blue light flickered across the cliff face.

The roar of the winds around him was too loud for him to hear the shouted, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

**--Niigata, Japan --**

Kagome continued to focus on soothing the new magic as she silently apologized to her aunt for every outburst she had ever made merely to try and rile the older miko's unflappable composure. It had likely taken her aunt years to gain control of her gift, and Kagome was having trouble just keeping it away from her for more than five minutes. Working her miko powers to exhaustion had obviously been the wrong thing to do, as the visions had been getting more frequent. But they seemed to have stopped for the time being.

Kagome tested her holy powers. She could sense the souls of the dead surrounding her, but made no move to approach her. That was their way, she thought, opening her eyes to look at them. The mere fact that they lingered meant they had no desire to move on to the realms of the dead just yet.

_:: I warned you. ::_

Kagome was startled by the presence, undetectable as it was to her magical senses. And because of the souls that continued to be drawn unwillingly to her holy aura for cleansing, its pink light wasn't immediately noticeable either. There were far too many souls for her to lay all of them to rest in a single night. It would take three days of her doing nothing but speaking with the beings and convincing them to move on to clear the entire place out.

She had a feeling that, since this was a youkai ancestral home, had it not been for her aunt, there would be months of work here to do. How had her aunt lived with her gift and the millennia of history this place held?

"Warned me about what?" she asked tiredly.

_:: That names had power. ::_ It said succinctly.

Oh. That. "I'm not so stupid as I didn't figure that out for myself."

_:: But you are stupid enough you only understood after the fact. ::_

"Well, maybe if you had explained that I would end up getting her gift if I mentioned her name while still in her mind, I would have known not to do it!" she snapped. The charred landscape wavered green, and Kagome closed her eyes to try to calm down.

_:: I cannot answer direct questions unless they do not pertain to the matter at hand. ::_

Kagome didn't see the humor in the explanation. She opened her eyes to swing a glare in the presence's general direction. "And how in the gods' names do you expect me to understand you if you keep doing that?"

_:: Little girl, I am doing the best I can. Do you think I wish to go through this a fifth time::_

"Eh? Go through this? Would the 'this' you're referring to be the fact that I happen to be sitting in the biggest slaughter field since Rwanda? Although a whole lot more people actually cared about the Rwanda genocide than this," she said bitterly. "My family through marriage and nobody else seems to give a damn, though they've known them for centuries."

_:: You might want to remember those words when you remember they are not all dead ::_

"So did you come just to scold me or was there some non-information you wanted to tease me with?"

_:: You would do well to watch whom you mouth off at, little miko. There are few more powerful than I, but they all have worse tempers. The gods do not take kindly to being insulted by a child in the throes of a tantrum. ::_

Kagome caught the reference to the gods again, but quickly suppressed a question about it. It had already said it couldn't be any more straightforward than it already was. Which it wasn't at all. "I'm sorry," she sighed. "I'm trying to cope with lack of information, an overabundance of youkai and visions, and spirits that are setting off all my extra senses, and their auras aren't exactly happy. Nor, in some cases, are they friendly. It's nerves, and I'm lashing out at everyone to keep from internalizing it all and breaking."

_:: Explanations are unnecessary. ::_ It skimmed forward- she noted with surprise that it went straight through the restless spirits without them ever noticing its presence- and took on a vaguely humanoid outline to sit next to her on the charred ground. Though it did more hovering that sitting.

Kagome seriously wondered what it was. Obviously not dead, if ghosts couldn't see it, but then neither would it be alive. Spirits still trapped between the realms of life and death saw much more than those people still solely residing in the living realm.

"Who are you talking to?"

The pink light flickered out of existence as Kagome spun her head around to look at the speaker.

"Wha?" she said incoherently.

"Do you always sit around in burned out fields and babble to yourself or is this a new thing that comes from your weak human mind being overburdened by stress?" the hanyou explained tactlessly.

"I wasn't talking to myself!"

He pointedly looked around the desolate landscape, then looked back at her. "Well, then, baka, who were you talking to?"

Kagome had forgotten that nobody could see it but her. Even the spirits didn't seem to notice it. And half-demon that Inu-Yasha was, he didn't see the spirits either. Not that they were good conversationalists. "Oh shut up," she said in disgust. "There's ghosts here, is all."

"You humans are all crazy," he said, crossing his arms over his chest. Kagome recognized the gesture as something he did when he didn't know what else to do with them, like Mischa stuffing her hands in her pockets.

"You looked pretty human last night," she said, not bothering to sound annoyed. "I'm pretty sure there isn't another miko alive around," and oh, how her voice came close to cracking with those words, "so it must have just been your time of the month."

He either ignored or missed the crack at his masculinity. She was betting on the latter. "Oh come on, don't tell me you've never seen the wolf on the first of the month. We do have specific times to be human," he said defensively.

"And you just happen to have the day that a wolf pup decides to beat the crap out of you," Kagome said.

"It was a perfectly good distraction, and the bones have already healed."

"Oh, yes, and Fukii looks so much better now," she said snidely.

"I don't see you tripping over yourself to do even your stupid human 'I'm sorry for your fucking loss' routine, when you didn't even know them!"

Kagome flinched back some. He was right. She hadn't tried to talk to Fukii yet. But healing Matsuro had been important, and nobody would be able to get anything done if she had let the dark spirits stick around. Gods, even the presence had pointed it out, and she had missed it completely. "I-" she started.

"Don't be a fucking hypocrite and sympathize with her. You will never know what it's like to lose everything you ever cared about."

"Who the hell do you think you are to know anything about who I may or may not have lost?" she yelled right back. "You're not my fucking father."

"Damn straight I'm not that wife-beating bastard," he snarled. "That fucking excuse for a human deserved every fucking thing they did to him."

Kagome stared at him in horror. "What did you say?" she whispered in a hoarse voice.

He choked. "Nothing," he said quickly.

"Please don't tell me you actually think I'll believe that," she said, standing up to stalk towards the silver-haired half-demon. His ears flattened against his skull and his eyes took on a slightly panicked expression.

"Never even met the man," he said. "Have no idea what happened to him."

The stormy-eyed miko was having none of it. She was inches away from him, hands balled into angrily-shaking fists at her side, and she said in a dangerous, low voice, "Just what did you say about my father?"

The half-demon decided that being afraid of the woman was ridiculous and managed to scowl at her. "That wife-beating bastard deserved what happened to him," he repeated slowly, as if talking to a confused child.

Kagome slapped him. "Don't talk about my father like you actually knew him!"

He looked as though he hadn't even noticed the slap. "And don't you stick up for that shit-eater. You were five when he died, you moron, so how can you remember a single fucking thing about him?"

Kagome looked like she was going to slap him again, but she managed to suppress the urge. "Who the hell are you to tell me anything about him? My mother-"

"Your mother would say 'god bless you' if Hitler sneezed, and you know it! Did you actually think she'd tell you anything nice about the man who knocked her up and forced her into marriage?"

Kagome's face had gone pale- either in anger or horror. "You shut up. You don't understand anything you're talking about."

His eyes narrowed and his scowl deepened. The look in his eyes would have warned more sensible people to run. "And when she had you, and not a son, he went into a rage. She was in a coma for a month," he said in a furious voice that, even though it was said barely above a whisper, echoed off nothing. "She had to stay in the hospital for another six months. Your aunt had to leave here to look after you. She knew what that fucking bastard would do to a newborn. And once your mother was out of the hospital, she went straight back to that fucking bastard for some more abuse! And you're fucking sticking up for the man?"

"What are you talking about?" It wasn't true, it wasn't true, it wasn't true. The words kept racing through her head, even as she replayed conversations with her aunt that had left her confused as to why, even though she was married, she kept the name Meirin.

"I'm talking about the fact that you people continually have a fucking nice word for every fucking shit-eater you come across. You and your goddamned second chances! What in the fucking world makes you think anyone can change?" he asked angrily. Kagome thought detachedly that he was talking about somebody else.

Her mother had said she was hospitalized for the months following her birth due to labor complications, but Inu-Yasha was right. Both she and her mother never said anything mean about anyone if they could help it. Her mother was better, she had more practice. It would be easy to forget to tell her children about their father. After all, he had died mere days after Souta's birth.

_"Ever left a five-year-old alone?"_

"_What?"_

"_It's not important."_

When she was born, Mischa would have been five. Her aunt had stayed with her sister and niece in Tokyo. Mischa hadn't.

Something awful had happened to Mischa, she had known that for years. Trauma victims were easy to spot for someone as empathic as Kagome. And she had the unhappy suspicion that it had happened in those months. Mischa would have been five- Mikomi would have been in Tokyo, leaving her daughter the sole person of human blood on a Niigata lupine rice farm.

Her vision swam.

_"You fucking useless bitch!" The sound of flesh striking flesh. The sickening crunch of bones splintering under the force. "How fucking hard is it to have a son? You're useless! Worthless!" Each word was punctuated with more strikes, and a woman crying out in pain, and the thin wail of a baby rose above the sounds of the scuffle._

_And then it stopped as he screamed in agony. "Touch my sister again, Higurashi, and I will break every finger you have. Multiple times. And make sure they do not heal properly." The wails of the baby quieted._

"_Don't tell me what I can or cannot do to my wife, you whore." His voice was higher-pitched than it should have been._

"_Do not think that I do not know how you managed to convince my father to let you marry her. Just because they refuse to see how pathetic and sadistic you are does not mean I do not. And I will castrate you with a rusty spoon if you dare to lay another finger on either your wife or your daughter. Now get out of my sight."_

"_This is my house, bitch."_

_He screamed in pain and there was the sound of scuffling, and then the slam of a door._

"_Oh gods, she's not breathing," a new man's voice said. "I came as soon as I realized something was wrong."_

"_I appreciate you taking out the trash, hanyou, but you should not be here."_

"_You can't keep me away," the man said, his voice deepened with anger._

"_And you can't keep him away either. You should not be here. I understand your promise, but I can look after them for now. My daughter-"_

"_She'll be fine, it's you three who are going to be in trouble. He won't be out of it for long, and you're right, he'll be back. Get them to the hospital and I'll make sure he won't do anything else."_

"_No," the woman snapped. "She still doesn't see him for who he is. Let her make her mistakes."_

"_Dammit, woman, he'll kill her if this happens again!"_

"_No he won't," she said with surety._

"_You trust him even less than I do. And I don't trust him at all. Don't you start trusting him now," he snarled._

"_You can't keep protecting us from our mistakes. Learn to let us grow up," she said softly, even as the wail of sirens began._

"_Mikomi," he said unevenly._

"_She'll see the error of her choice if you give her time, Inu-Yasha. Let her go."_

"_You can't keep protecting her either."_

_The wail of sirens grew steadily. "But I must right now. And you must go."_

_The door slammed shut and the woman sighed._

"_Oh, Ai-chan, I warned you," she said in a voice thick with tears._

_The door opened. "Ma'am, we received a call about a domestic disturbance here."_

"_My sister- her husband- he-" The strength of will that had driven away both husband and protective guardian failed, and her voice broke into sobs. _

Kagome sank to her knees, sobbing.

Inu-Yasha recognized the inner glow of her eyes, and knelt beside her and patted her back awkwardly. "I'm sorry."

The miko buried her face in his shirt and continued to sob. "It's not true," she said between sobs.

The hanyou said nothing.

**-- Elsewhere --**

"You are impossible," the woman said.

"Nothing is impossible," the newcomer said with a sneer. "And do not think I like the arrangement any more than you."

"What arrangement?"

"Even an untrained elementalist can sense it."

He watched with interest as the human frowned, amber energy shifting as she searched for something. He recalled the way the magical energies had been woven about her when she first appeared, and noted that all the demon energy had been siphoned away into the newcomer.

It was fascinating. He would rather like to meet the youkai who had discovered how to split a half demon into entirely human and demon parts. And unless he missed his guess, the hanyou was now completely mortal, at least until she managed to recombine her soul.

Because he was sure that was who the newcomer was. The other half of the young woman's soul. Or at least her mind. His lips quirked in amusement. It was obvious that the human had never been aware of how deep the schism in her mind went, and the youkai only seemed to know about it because she was the more repressed personality. It also looked like neither appreciated the fact they were now both aware and in the presence of the other.

Half demon, half human. And now two completely different people- if in mind only.

Almond-shaped brown eyes that looked as though they had never opened completely glared into cat-like narrowed silver, scowls identical in their show of borderline hatred and distrust. One's face was sharply angular and decidedly vulpine; the other had the soft, not-quite-baby-fat curves of attractive young women. Both were tall with muscles far too toned for either to ever be considered classically beautiful. Magic snapped about both- silver and gold for the silver-eyed woman, and a rich earthy amber-brown laced with pale blue and pink flickered around the other. One was garbed strictly in black, the other in faded browns.

He summoned pen and paper and jotted notes.

They were the same person, simply split in twain. He had no doubt that entire conversations flitted through those glares, and when one shifted in place, the other unconsciously mimicked it. The miko energy was obviously meant to seal the hanyou to human form, thus the original dark-eyed young woman with a solely human energy. But sometime recently, she had somehow bound herself to a kitsune- and he doubted the fox demon, whomever he was, was very appreciative of the fact that his magic had dwindled to that of an untrained human sensitive- and thus had enough energy for her demonic half to create its own form in this realm of wills and magic, aided by the seal his brother placed upon her that undid the holy magic.

It would be interesting to see what would happen to the two should they ever be released back into the physical world and away from his brother's non-physical seal. Would they snap back into being one personality in the forefront or would they both be conscious at the same time? Either was likely, and she would probably go mad if the latter happened. Human medication wouldn't treat _those_ voices.

The youkai half had dark red stripes crossing each cheek, and he could catch identical flashes on her wrists under the black turtleneck she wore. The markings were seen rarely in this day. Once they had meant power- taiyoukai always had them, though rarely wore them openly- but in more modern days, the markings were often just a title. A taiyoukai was interested in the half-human, and this was his idea of keeping track of her. They usually passed along information with the markings- possibly explaining why a virtual child managed to succeed on placing a binding spell on a kitsune.

The human wasn't likely to survive the confrontation with her demon half should their argument degenerate into violence. Not with demon markings opening up the wolf's magic beyond that which she had training for.

"The knots are gone," she finally said.

Both youkai snorted. "You have not had much magical training, have you?" the dragon asked. Knots indeed. How had the woman managed to get to the age she was without ever being able to tell her own magical energies apart?

The brown-eyed woman glowered. "I am sure you can see the absolute lack of a point in trying to teach a hanyou magic."

"On your human days," he replied blithely.

"Who would want to teach someone magic only once a month? Especially to a human," she said with a sneer.

"Raised with demons, then, were you? I find it amusing they did not kill you at birth," he said, not showing the glee he felt with her offering up more knowledge of her heritage. The Meirin family had power in spades, and it would be useful to discover if either of the two women standing in front of him had knowledge that had been discovered about seals since his imprisonment.

He had not been entirely honest when he said there was no way to escape. It was only a fraction of a percent more possible than surviving being tossed into an active volcano, but it was possible. Probabilities, however, were very much against their chances of survival. And any new knowledge would be extremely helpful in improving those chances.

"I would imagine it is difficult to deny a miko anything, especially if you were the one to offer the idea," the dark woman said.

"A miko? Your mother is the one who split you? I find that hard to believe."

Both ignored him.

"How would you know anything about that deal?"

"We were still the same person then."

Mental problems in a half demon. He was certain this was the best proof anybody had ever come across in convincing humans and youkai to keep from continuing to have hanyou children. Their children were obviously unbalanced- this one even more so than others.

The brown-eyed woman shifted her stance slightly, he noted amusedly, into one he was very familiar with. She was a few sentences away from starting a fist fight with her demonic half. He grinned wryly. She didn't trust herself. With very good reason. "We're not the same person?"

"How else would I manage to be here in the first place? You may have blocked those memories, but I have not."

The darkly-tanned human paled considerably. He had never wished for telepathy more.

"Though revenge did not solve the problem," the youkai said, her bored voice laced with annoyance.

The human regained enough of her senses to scowl. "What gave you any right-"

"Might is right," the youkai snapped. "If it is in my ability to destroy that which I despise, then it is my duty to do so. What he did to you- me- _us_, was inexcusable and unforgivable. And they did nothing to stop it or allow us vengeance, even if you had worked up the nerve to demand it. Now he can never do to another what has happened to us. And now they can stew in their own juices as they try to solve the problems this has caused."

"What problems?"

"As if I would warn you," the youkai snapped.

"I _am _you," the other replied snidely.

"Yet another embodiment of yin and yang. The other will be pleased."

He watched in fascination as the magical aura surrounding the human flared. "Leave him out of this," she said in a low voice dripping in ice.

"He was involved long before us."

"We need to leave."

"You can leave as soon as the child returns, and I will remain until the seal is broken."

Both dragon and human goggled. Silver eyes slid slyly in his direction, and he realized the dark woman had never forgotten he was there. Both women had skirted their issues in a feat worthy of the most paranoid youkai hiding from taiyoukai out to kill him. Had he not been in eavesdropping distance, their conversation would still have been the very same.

"It is a demon seal, after all," she went on.

He understood at once. The Meirin had originally been held because of her previously dormant youkai energies, but because of the odd schism in her mind, the demon had been removed from her main persona, leaving the human free to go as soon as some other human managed to gain contact with the main seal.

It was still impossible for two to leave, but the third's chances had risen from impossible to very improbable.

And yet the demon woman had said she would remain until the seal was broken. What made her so confident it would?

The human hadn't caught the insinuation yet. Her brows were furrowed together as she pondered her alter ego's words.

The dark woman continued. "And what demon magic can bind a human?"

Plenty, he would have said, but it was true for this seal. It was meant to bind demons only, and the Meirin need only wait for another human to remind the seal it held someone it shouldn't. He had spent decades studying his jail, and only twice had he felt a human come near it. They would still be here for quite some time, unless his two sons in the physical realm where the seal was placed happened to bring dinner back with them still alive.

And with the years of practice he had had with weakly sensing the physical realm, he realized that the gods were indeed working in favor of the young woman who was so split against herself.

Because he could feel another of his blood coming, and with her, a human.

The human, oddly enough, was the first of the two to notice the slight tremor in the magic outside their prison. Her eyes unfocused from the steady gaze she kept on her alter ego. The other woman noticed the change as well, before smirking silently to herself.

The dragon found himself hoping that the Meirin left soon, leaving her demonic half free to be interrogated. He was very interested in knowing the bargain the taiyoukai and dark woman had made and the details of what it was exchanged.

"From the frying pan into the fire," the youkai said to her counterpart as her eyes regained clarity.

"You-" Whatever the woman was going to say went unsaid as her form glowed a pale shade of indigo, and disappeared into what passed as dust motes in this nonphysical realm.

Silver eyes sparkled maliciously as the black wolf turned her gaze to the elder dragon. "Your highness," she said calmly.

And he realized whatever information meant to be given by the taiyoukai who had marked her, he had given her far too much.

"Lady," he replied in a stiff voice.

"The world is ever changing."

And no more needed to be said.

For as the divine had given way to demon, and as demon gave way to mortal, the mortal rule of the world would be toppled by some other, as the Shikon no Tama continued its search for mortality.


	25. Twenty Four: Tears of the Buddha

**Chapter Twenty-Four: Tears of the Buddha**

"_Experience is a hard teacher because she gives the test first and the lesson afterward." _

- Vernon Law

**-- Midday, May 23, Tokyo, Japan --**

Brown eyes snapped open.

Pain coursed through her entire body. Had she been prone to waxing eloquently on these matters, she might have told someone it felt like her blood was liquid fire, and steadily getting hotter. Or else that someone had taken a lead two by four to her entire body. She'd had hangovers that were less nauseous. Luckily, her stomach had been empty for days.

She lurched unsteadily off the bed and onto her feet. She'd never had a Summons before, but Ki's gleeful tales about the rare youkai who ignored them left her not wanting to be one of them.

Pale lavender light lit the darkened room from where her bare feet hit the floor. She snorted. Somehow, it wasn't surprising that he'd managed to both find her and sneak past youkai wards into the place. She left faded purple footsteps as she moved away from the bed.

Later, she would vaguely remember pulling on a clean shirt and wandering out of the apartment, out of the building, and in the direction the tug of the Summons was. But it was as if her brain was still three-quarters asleep. Something was missing, something important.

The only thing she would remember about the period of time between waking and arrival in Niigata was being run into by a frazzled brunet.

"Jesus, Shan!" And before she had even recognized that she had been run into- not that in her state of mind she would have noticed at all, as if she failed to concentrate on the Summons pulling her northwards, the pain coursing through her increased tenfold- tanned, callused hands had grabbed hold of her arms and she was forced still to recognize his presence.

Brown eye, gray eye, worried frown, pale scar, wind-tousled brown hair, three silver rings glinting along his left ear.

"Yukino-san," she said with a frown. Had she expected to see him? She had recognized the faint spells she had walked through earlier. That meant he was keeping an eye on her. "You're Buddhist," she said inanely, commenting on his oath.

"Just because I was raised in a Buddhist monastery-" Yoshi paused, frown returning as he studied Mischa's shuttered features. He waved a hand in front of her face. It was a long moment before her eyes actually started tracking. "Meirin-san, should you really be on your feet? You look like shit."

"Summons," she managed to say, tugging free of his hand to walk around him and continue down the street. Each step was slightly less painful, but she was still too dizzy to see straight without something to focus on. And something else whispered that she had forgotten something important, left it behind.

He followed. "Then I'm amazed you're on your feet at all. The Summons is old, and you're only just now going. That has to be pretty painful."

She continued to concentrate on moving northward. The pain lessened then.

"You do realize you're barefoot, don't you?" He asked in a half-hearted cheerful manner as he easily matched her fast pace.

She stumbled over her next step, but recovered quickly. "Huh," she said distractedly. She hadn't noticed.

Yoshi grabbed her arm again and stopped. Mischa stopped as well. Had she still been in her usual hanyou form, she would have pulled free of the grasp, but as it was, he was stronger than her.

"Meirin-san," he said, "you're never going to make it there on foot before it kills you."

"No money for the train," she said. "Or a taxi. And I don't have a car."

"Neither do I, but that's not the means of transportation I was talking about," he said with a grin. "Do you trust me?"

She eyed him suspiciously. It was answer enough. He sighed.

"Look, Meirin-san." He paused, then said in a different tone, "Shan-"

It was enough to break her daze. Brown eyes regained clarity. She said in a low voice, "Dammit, Kyo, I don't trust anyone!"

"You don't trust anyone with everything. There are those of us you trust to a point. And I'm asking you to trust me just a little bit more."

"Kyo," she sighed in a sad voice.

"You're never going to make it there alive without magic, Shan. They're not meeting here in Tokyo," he said, his eyes piercing hers.

"Ki said they always do," she said with a frown.

"Yoko-sama's is not the only place north of here where taiyoukai meet."

She understood what he was saying. And she had vowed she was never going back there. Not that she had told him that. She was faced with a decision that should have been less difficult. Stay true to her vow to herself and never return to Niigata and die for it, or break her vow and keep her promise to Yoko not to get herself killed in Tokyo.

The look in Yoshi's eyes said he knew something of her dilemma. "Shan, this isn't something to lose your life over." Both could hear a silent addition, 'There are those people who care.'

She sighed. It hurt too much to argue. And there was still that strange feeling of loss. "What are you suggesting I do?"

He smiled. "Elemental travel."

"That's only possible for masters."

Her human days were always odd. Keep away from everyone of demon blood, and keep control of her powers unless she wanted to have the pavement start growing grass wherever she walked. Most types of earth magic had to deal with either vegetation or minerals. Hers concentrated on growing things. Like plants from the years of seed-laden bird shit landing on Tokyo's sidewalks. Or new skin after a kitsune burnt her alive.

Chame, later, would hypothesize that Mischa's inborn ability to grow things stemmed from the fact that her six months in Shinin's custody had left her with a split mind and a horrific tendency to break out in burns when touched. Nor was she safe simply evading contact- in her usual hanyou form, Mischa lived in a constant haze of pain as demon blood coursed through her, raising burns and healing them automatically, giving her the appearance of having a heavy tan. Her human elemental ability acted similarly to the demon healing she only had when hanyou- keeping the scars invisible. Chame wouldn't say what she thought the serpent had been after, and Mischa never said a word about that period of her life.

"Well, you've got the right element for this type of travel, and I'm a master."

"You're my opposing element," she pointed out.

His smile never dimmed. "That just means I can't go with you. Which is a good thing in this case. Not to mention it could only be an air or water master doing this. Earth and fire don't deal with the mind as much as we do."

Mischa was beginning to get a glimmer of what he was hinting at. It wasn't telepathy, thankfully, but it did explain why he asked if she trusted him.

He was right, though. She had to have some trust in some people. And there were few she trusted more than the friendly, worried air master. Her mother, Kagome, Inu-Yasha. But none ever asked for her trust as he did right now, forcing her to admit to trusting him. She silently acquiesced to his request by releasing much of her hold on her power. Small tendrils of green began curling up from the sidewalk cracks under her feet.

"This is going to feel a bit odd," he said, his hands clasping hers. Brown eyes met mismatched gray and brown. She felt, more than saw, his lavender magic tracing down his arms and slowly up hers. Her magic reacted instinctively, fighting the foreign presence.

'Do you trust me?' echoed throughout her head. She might say aloud that she trusted him, but she couldn't lie to herself. She trusted no one completely.

"This isn't going to work," she said, trying to take her hands away from his.

"Patience, Shan," he said quietly, eyes never leaving hers. "Patience and trust."

_"If I asked you to kill me, would you?"_

"_Interesting conversation topic for dinner."_

"_Answer the question, and maybe we'll do this again."_

"_Yes, I would."_

"_Why?"_

"_Because you don't seem the sort of person to ask that lightly. If you ever did ask, I'd trust it was because there was no other solution to whatever events had put us in that situation."_

"_Trust?"_

"_It's what humans do, Shan. You'll get it, sooner or later."_

And the struggle stopped as if it had never happened. Mischa could feel the two energies twisting about each other- not combining; each was still a separate entity, but still allowing both to feel the presence of the other's magic. Two, one. Yin, yang. Her dark gold to his pale lavender. Separate, yet sharing the same space. Yoshi always liked things to be balanced.

He released her hands. Yin. Yang. Patience. Trust.

"Kyo-" she began, eyes widening with realization.

The ground opened up underneath her. She vanished as the air master slumped to the ground with an exhausted sigh.

"Probably should have warned her that I'd never done that before," he said aloud, searching his pockets for his pack of cigarettes. He absentmindedly tapped it against his hand as the air around him murmured an agreement.

"Kill or cure," he said, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. "She's a born survivor."

The air cooled noticeably.

Yoshi frowned. He had lived here too long. The air had gone from having just emotions and a borderline personality to being able to keep from telling him things. Another few years and it would be its own person completely.

"What do you know that I don't?"

The laughter the wind carried wasn't malicious, but dread pooled in the air master's stomach.

There hadn't been anything else to do. Another hour and her mind would have completely shut off to escape the pain caused by ignoring the Summons. And Niigata was well over four hours away. Not that the mode of travel she had taken wasn't dangerous.

After all, the reason that only a master could use their element to travel from one place to another was due to years of practice in knowing exactly how much energy was needed to do something. Energy needed for travel varied on weight, distance, materials worn, weather conditions, and a plethora of other details few would think of or remember.

And he had just manipulated someone else's magic into doing something he could barely do himself.

She'd be lucky if the magical whiplash didn't kill her.

"Kill or cure," he repeated, inhaling deeply. "Too bad the option she'd prefer is the one I'm hoping against."

**--Niigata, Japan --**

There is only so much crying one can do. If you can't cry, smile. If you can't see how bad the world really is, pretend everything is okay and see the silver lining in everything. It was what Kagome tried to live by. She liked being happy, but she had had so many mood swings the past week that she half-expected to find herself pregnant.

"You mind?"

Kagome was resting her head against a hard chest; his hand awkwardly patting her back in a manner she thought was supposed to be comforting.

"Sorry," she whispered, pulling away from the uncomfortable half-demon. She kept her head bowed so he couldn't see the red blotches around her eyes, the drying tear tracks streaking down her cheeks, or the crinkles his shirt had left on one side of her face. "Why'd you have to tell me that?" she asked in a voice hoarse from crying, soft because she can't work up the anger to yell at him for breaking another illusion of her life.

"You're the one who keeps wanting us to tell you what's going on," he said grumpily, but almost as softly, his way of understanding the mood.

"I could have lived happily without knowing the truth about my father."

"You could live happily without ever understanding why the hell the taiyoukai keep their ever-present eyes on you, or why there's a flight of fucking dragons keeping tabs on you to find out when they have to kill you, or why-"

"I'm going to get just as upset about those answers as I am about the last, aren't I?"

It wasn't a question, not really, but Inu-Yasha answered anyway. "Yeah. I'll try to remember a box of tissues so I won't get snot all over my shirt," he groused.

"Sorry," she repeated.

"It's not like I liked it in the first place," he said, uncomfortable with actually vocalizing an acceptance to her unnecessary apology.

"How did he really die, if it wasn't a car accident?" she said, looking up to search his eyes for something.

He shifted nervously. "It was a car accident. Yoko hooked me up with an elementalist who sideswiped his car with magic and sent it off a cliff. He was still conscious after it stopped rolling, but he was dying. There was glass everywhere, and he hadn't worn his seatbelt. Though the elementalist may have popped it open."

"Why would an elementalist help a hanyou kill someone? And you're talking like you were waiting for him at the bottom."

His ears flattened against his head at the accusatory question. "He helped me because his mother was tortured before death and wasn't about to let another gifted child grow up an orphan like him," he explained, tracing spiraling designs in the ash they sat in.

"You were there," she said again, and this time it was not a question.

He closed his eyes. "Yeah," he breathed out, "I was there."

**-- Flashback --**

_The blond leaned lazily against the battered vehicle, staring amused and angry right into the dying man's eyes._

"_You were warned, Higurashi, what would happen if it continued," he said._

_The man gurgled, and the blond's hazel eyes were drawn to the glass shards embedded everywhere in the other man's face and deep into his throat. The man couldn't beg for his life even if he wanted to. He was a bit disappointed, but not too much._

_He reached a hand forward and pressed a small shard deeper into the man's cheek. "This," he hissed, "is for approaching Meirin Aiko." Blood welled around the shard._

"_This," and this time it was a long shard right above his eye, "is for getting Aiko-chan so drunk she couldn't see straight and for bringing her back to your place." He had pushed the glass so far and so hard it was shattering on the bones of the man's eye socket, sending tiny slivers deeper into him, and causing the skin to turn black from the harsh bruising deep under his skin._

_The man gurgled again, convulsing, trying to escape the punishment._

_His hand moved from one eye to the other. This shard was smaller, and further from the eye. He shoved it deep into the man's skin, continuing relentlessly on. "This is for forcing Aiko-chan into marriage, when she sobbingly confessed to her father about being pregnant with your child and wanting an abortion."_

_More gurgles. It was almost as good as listening to pleas for mercy. Bastard would have been incoherent by now anyway._

_His hand moved to a large shard of glass embedded between the end of the man's jaw and the bottom of his ear. "And this," he said, pushing softly against the shard, sinking it slowly, painfully, deeper into the man's face, "is for the six months she spent unconscious when you thought her having a daughter was sinful and a crime worthy of death." He tore the shard viciously through the man's face, pulling it free at the nose, blood splattering everywhere._

_The man managed to scream this time, and it was music to his ears. Every wrong this man had inflicted upon the sweet-tempered little girl he had broken, Inu-Yasha would repay upon him like he should have done the moment he found out, instead of listening to Mikomi's request to let the young woman learn from her mistakes. Learn, dammit, not die. He wasn't going to let her die from something she couldn't save herself from._

_His hand moved to the other side of the man's face, to a piece of metal that had managed to ram itself partially into the man's ear canal. The man whimpered continuously, a wordless plea to make it stop. And what mercy should he show to a man who had shown none? And harm none, lest it be done unto thee. He wasn't quite sure where he had heard it, but the human whimpering underneath his hands had obviously never heard of it._

_He drew back his hand. The man tried to smile, or sigh, in relief. He wasn't sure which, nor did he care. His smile broadened, showing off pointed canines, eyes narrowed to make the smile more evil than it otherwise would have seemed._

"_And this," he said, balling his hand into a fist and pulling it away from the man, "is for thinking you could touch your daughter when your wife was in the hospital giving birth to a stillborn son."_

_His fist connected with the long piece of metal and pounded it into the man's brain. Blood and gray pieces of matter splattered across both men as the man died screaming._

"_Burn in the bottom layer of hell, fucker."_

_The blond moved away from the dead man and checked the car over to make certain there was no sign of him being there._

_There wasn't._

_There was a small gust of wind, and a scowling brunet appeared at his side._

"_Thanks," he said grouchily to the newcomer._

"_Don't mention it," the man replied seriously. "I doubt Yoko will be happy if he knew I helped. But to think that since his wife wasn't available, to beat up his own kid... You should have let him live longer just to drag out the misery."_

"_I got impatient."_

"_At least you managed to get some pain in," the brunet said. "I'd hate to think the fall had killed him. Then he might never have understood why one doesn't touch the Meirin family without permission."_

_The high he had gotten from revenge disappeared as shock coursed through his system. "How the hell did you know who I was talking about?"_

_The man scratched his ear, sunlight glinting off silver earrings. "You could say I have a vested interest in the family. I met the miko a few years ago, and she told me something she Saw of my future."_

_The blond sighed and shook his head disbelievingly. "She's a fucking busybody."_

"_She came off rather motherly to me," the young man said with a grin. "But then, she was pregnant at the time."_

"_What did she say?" he asked, curious._

"_Just brushed my bangs back from my face and 'So young to have to do such a terrible thing to the one you love.' She looked upset about it."_

"_What the fuck?"_

"_My thoughts exactly. I need to get back. Yoko's going to wonder where his protégé has got off to." The brunet disappeared into the air._

**-- End Flashback --**

"What happened?" Kagome asked, unaware of his thoughts.

"I watched him die, just so I would know he wouldn't come back," he said. It wasn't too much of a lie.

"That's sick."

"Welcome to the youkai world," he said, lips curling into a snarl. "We have different ideas of propriety than humans. Watching someone die at your feet is acceptable if you want to make sure they're dead and stay dead."

He sneezed.

"Damn it," came Chame's voice from behind him.

Kagome looked over the hanyou's shoulder to see Fukii staring sadly at the emptied lake, and Chame standing beside her, half-scowling, half-grinning at the two.

"That sneeze gives me away to him every time," Chame explained to Kagome.

Inu-Yasha scowled, but neither youkai saw it.

"So what are you two doing?" Chame asked. "It doesn't look like much fun." She crinkled her nose, wondering what had caused the waterworks.

"Just discussing the past," Kagome said.

"Boring stuff about dead people," Chame complained, plopping down beside the hanyou, dragging a quiescent Fukii with her. Fukii sat beside Kagome, intent upon staring sightlessly at the dry lake, just as Kagome had been doing earlier. The thought crossed Kagome's mind that Fukii was seeing her own visions of a healthy blue lake, surrounded by terraced rice paddies.

"Not all of them are dead," Inu-Yasha griped.

"Ne, Ki," Chame said, pinching the redhead staring longingly at the empty hollow to get her attention, "do the taiyoukai discuss the past?"

The wolf mumbled something incoherently.

Kagome thought she knew what the problem was. "Chame-chan, what's wrong with cousin Fukii?"

Fukii started noticeably, and Inu-Yasha and Chame traded sly grins. "Cousin?" Chame questioned in an innocent voice.

"Yeah," Kagome said, giving the young kitsune a still-watery smile. "Mischa's my cousin, and she's Mischa's cousin, so that makes us cousins too."

Fukii's eyes became amazingly clear as she pinned her vivid blue eyes on the young miko. Kagome's smile never dimmed. Fukii sniffled, eyes shimmering suspiciously.

"Oh gods, not again," Inu-Yasha said irritated.

The little redhead burrowed her head under Kagome's arm and her body shuddered with repressed tears. Kagome rubbed the youkai's back soothingly.

"All this crying, it's amazing the fucking lake hasn't refilled," the hanyou said tactlessly.

Before Kagome could reprimand him, Chame's elbow dug deeply into the taller demon's stomach.

"Shit!" he yelped. "What the fuck was that for?"

Kagome closed her eyes and sighed. He couldn't be nice to save his life.

**-- Tokyo, Japan --**

The clutter of things about the room gave it the appearance of being smaller than it actually was. Bookshelves filled with handwritten texts centuries old lined the walls, with only a small gap for a door. A large table filled one portion of the room, and it was covered with scattered papers and calligraphy pens of various colors. Some had a faint tingle of magic in them.

Strange laboratory equipment filled the rest of the room. Glass beakers filled with bubbling liquids littered every flat surface, vials of neatly label chemicals, plants, and unmentionable substances were scattered across a high desk, and a maze of plastic tubing ran all over the place in the organized chaos only a genius could understand.

In a corner of the room, a lump of beaten and bloody flesh was chained to the stone wall, and it groaned softly every so often. The man seated at the desk, poring over a thick tome, ignored it.

After one especially loud groan, the green and gray-haired man raised crimson eyes to look coolly at his prisoner.

"Drawing my attention, especially with you in such... poor shape, is not a wise move. The sooner I finish these studies, the sooner I will put you out of your misery," he said icily.

"Fuck off," the other said in a low painful whisper.

"It is you and your fellows who brought this upon yourselves. You continue to dilute your species with the blood of lesser beings, and quite frankly, things have never been the same since your ancestors exiled us from the h eavens. I am simply returning things to the way they were and should be."

"Get the fuck over yourself. The heavens barred themselves from us after you killed your father," the prisoner ground out, then moaning painfully as slight movement sent the chains falling across his battered body.

"You and yours split his power between you," the older man said angrily. He ignored the prisoner's scoffing noise that quickly cut itself off before it became a whimper of pain. The dying youkai still had his pride. "I am taking back what is rightfully mine. Starting with you."

The prisoner drew in a shuddering breath. "I, Kouga, brother of Tsukikage," he said in slow, enunciated words.

The other man chuckled darkly. "You don't think I made sure to kill the rest of your family before binding you, did you, wolf? There is no one else for that power to go to."

The man continued on, ignoring the growing pain of his body. He knew he was only hours from death, and that what he was doing would speed the process up, but better that than letting the power the wolves held over the Northern Lands fall into the claws of an insane dragon. "Once heir to the North, now Lord, do hereby renounce my claim to that heritage."

Green light blazed, and the marking on his forehead, underneath blood both dried and fresh, disappeared. The dragon roared in outrage as all the magic in his prisoner's body vanished as if the wolf had never held it in the first place.

"And may the Gods have mercy on us all," he choked out as the dragon's energy reached him, destroying the wolf's body, its spirit already fleeing to the realms of the dead.

The next roar of outrage shook the entire city, crumbling buildings at the epicenter of the damage, and destroying windows in another large ring around the block of crumbling stone, glass, and mortar.

A great serpentine body, easily one hundred feet long, flew northwards beyond the Tokyo skyline, heedless of who might see it. Though most who might be watching the sky had turned in horror to the great plume of smoke and ash at the center of the city.

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

The taiyoukai noticed it before the young kitsune did- the power surge in the earth steadily approaching them. Quick glances between the trio left Sesshoumaru in favor of killing whatever it was before it surfaced, Yoko on setting something to trap it, and Hizashi for simply waiting and letting it come. Hizashi won.

The nervous redhead missed the entire thing. He didn't, however, miss the fact that the barren ground near his feet suddenly exploded upwards, showering all four with ash, dust, stones, and dirt.

Matsuro jumped back, while the older three remained silent and still, not even the raining earth marring their dignified presence.

Through the strange downpour, the four could make out a dark-haired human on her hands and knees in a shallow crater beside the startled kitsune, coughing in great gasps that shook her entire body. She was caked with dirt.

"How the hell did she get here?" Matsuro asked as he picked up her scent under the rich smell of earth that had arrived with her.

The three exchanged looks. It often seemed to onlookers that to be a taiyoukai was to be telepathic, but only Hizashi would confess to the ability, and only because she had shown it before her ascendance to Lady of the South.

The unspoken conversation covered the facts that the young woman was human, had obvious earth elemental powers- if rather drained- and that she was far too young to have the experience necessary to do what she had just done, and that a minor amount of miko magic clung to her neck. All three came to the same quick conclusion of who she was, but not how she managed to transport herself from Tokyo to Niigata.

The woman in question continued her shuddered coughs. Her forehead was resting on the ground, and it was obvious her condition was worsening.

The trio had decided their course of action; even as Matsuro knelt down to hold the woman's shoulders, trying to lessen the shakes going through her body. She flinched at the contact, but couldn't stop coughing to refuse it.

Hizashi rested on one knee in front of the girl. How did she get here indeed? She pressed light fingers on top of the human's head.

_ She raced downwards through the earth. Arriving back where the woman had started, hands grabbed onto hers. Hizashi looked up, to see only darkness. And suddenly the hands weren't holding hers, they were settled on her waist, a moist mouth pressing kisses up her neck, moving steadily towards her mouth... _

Hizashi's eyes snapped open and she withdrew her hand with a furious blush that disappeared below her neckline.

'_Dragon seal cracked_' whispered through her mind in a quiet androgynous voice.

The girl had gone from coughing up dirt to great wheezing gasps as she tried to draw air into lungs that refused to cooperate.

"She's in shock," Hizashi said. "I can't get anything with her like this." They would discuss the possibility of a cracked seal away from Matsuro. The less he knew, the less likely he would accidentally warn Kino of. She would say nothing of the strange mental shield already placed on that particular memory.

Matsuro frowned. Both of the older men exchanged puzzled glances. All three had followed by scent Hizashi's movement in the newcomer's mind, and none could come up with a reason for the faint arousal that had come off the firebird as her hand had jerked away from the human's head.

"We'll just have to wait for her to calm down and ask her," Yoko said.

Matsuro's frown hardened into a glare as he stared up at his grandfather. "She's going to stop breathing before that happens, you senile fool," he growled.

Yoko glared back at the younger kitsune, then turned his gaze to the shuddering woman under Matsuro's hands. "I, Yoko, as head of the taiyoukai, in Lady Tsukikage's absence, acknowledge that Meirin Mischando, hanyou daughter of Shinji, son of Kouga, brother of Tsukikage, has answered her Summons and release her of the pain her tardiness has caused," he intoned.

The finally settled ash rose again as a great gust of wind swept by, laced with the older kitsune's power, passing over the pain-riddled human. It seemed to grab hold of something insubstantial in her and continued its journey with it.

Mischa rolled away from Matsuro's grasp, and lay on her back, breathing heavily, eyes closed.

Hizashi took the moment to study the young woman. She had never met her before, but had heard complaints about her from her fellows. Moody, disagreeable, violent, and likely insane. It seemed to Hizashi that Inu-Yasha had raised the other hanyou to be a great deal like himself, if thankfully far quieter. Of course, there were few hanyou who weren't of similar personalities. Mischa simply had the dubious honor of being the youngest. Inu-Yasha was firstborn, though not eldest.

Hizashi wasn't inclined to believe everything said about the hanyou, but enough of it was repeated that at least some of it was likely true.

She wasn't sure how the young woman had managed to ward against telepathy, but she had a feeling it had nothing to do with the woman and everything to do with the master who had to have helped her.

And it seemed to her that, even though the young woman in question glowed in her magical senses in amber and brown, there was something decidedly _green_ going on.

"Senile old fool," Matsuro muttered. He sat down, resting his arms across his knees, and looked quizzically at where Mischa had been kneeling. Where her hands and knees had been on the ground, slim, green, grassy blades were growing. And the greenery was subtly spreading. Had he been standing, he would have missed the small growths entirely.

"I'd like to know how you figured out elemental travel, when even I don't know how," Matsuro said, eyes moving from the tiny vegetation to the woman laying near him. His eyes flicked to the ground beneath her, and his guess was proven when he spotted more dots of green underneath the ash.

"This Sesshoumaru would be surprised if you did, considering your inability to control the flames you summon."

Matsuro winced. "It's not like anybody's in any of a hurry to teach me," he said, bitterness edging into his voice, "considering the fact that most of Kino's employees use water or else have no true magic at all."

"The gossips are quite convinced I am a terrible teacher," Yoko said with a grin, "and that I should either kill you for the dishonor you supposedly bring upon our family or I should finish your lessons. The quick and dirty way. I am inclined to agree."

Matsuro bowed his head over his knees, bangs hiding his face, and he exhaled loudly. "Oh gods."

"Fortunately for you, grandson, your current condition leaves me unable to do so. I suggest you concentrate that brilliant mind on finding the magician who bound your magic to him and convincing him that that was a poor move on his part."

Matsuro was rather proud of the fact that he didn't so much as wince as his grandfather subtly implied killing the young woman doing her damnedest to sink back into the earth that had spit her up. He was also grateful that she didn't look too guilty- though he wasn't sure she realized it was her Yoko was unwittingly talking about.

Mischa finally opened her eyes. Hizashi thought the girl looked more alone and scared than angry and violent. But then again, she was only human now.

She slowly sat up, hands massaging her shoulders where Matsuro had held her. The four could see faint red welts shaped like fingers before it disappeared underneath her shirt. "My head feels like someone dropped hot coal on it." Her eyes took in the three taiyoukai towering over her and the kitsune sitting near her.

"Allergies will do that," Yoko said.

Matsuro and Hizashi looked puzzled as the woman's eyes stopped roving and stared horrified at the redhead. Sesshoumaru looked impassively at her, eyes flicking to the growing circle of green around her.

Her gaze turned from Yoko to Matsuro, who was resting his chin on his forearms and studying her quizzically. He was wondering why he couldn't sense any demon magic from her- his or hers. Even in human form, a hanyou would always have something slightly off about them. "Wasn't it a general Summons? And how did I get here?"

"We were hoping you would tell us," Yoko replied, offering her a hand to help her up with a sardonic smirk.

Mischa bristled and looked as if she were going to refuse the hand, but the slight narrowing of Yoko's emerald eyes told her the kitsune would do something far worse if she did. She took the hand and pulled herself up.

The quartet of youkai spotted the burn marks on her hand immediately as she let go.

"What-" Matsuro started.

"Allergies," she ground out, fisting her hand, a silent dare in her voice to continue that line of questioning. "The point of the Summons, sir?"

Hizashi noted that with awareness seemed to have come a strong hatred of the world in general and Yoko in particular. Not that Hizashi could blame her for that one- Yoko got on everyone's nerves.

Yoko chuckled. "Look around you, young one. What do you think?"

She turned slowly. Ashes everywhere, the only spots of green were where she stood, when she had been too far out of her mind to keep control. There, where the main building had once stood, were fire-scorched stone ruins. A small wooden building had been summoned for the visitors to stay in to sleep, but claustrophobia had driven them out as soon as they had woken in the morning. Further away, where there used to be vast terraced paddies was merely gray, ash-covered flat ground. Really, Hizashi thought, the entire complex was varying shades of gray. The only color in this now-muted world was the youkai. And two humans and a hanyou.

Sesshoumaru came closed to blending in with the surroundings, with his pale skin, silver hair, and primarily white kimono. No one had any idea what the creamy white ball of fluff that fluttered on his right shoulder was. In her earlier years, she and her siblings would take turns coming up with more ridiculous guesses about it. Likely the only people who knew what it was were Sesshoumaru and Yoko. And possible Inu-Yasha.

Yoko, with his flamboyant hair and rich blue business suit, was likely the most formally dressed of all those present, though Hizashi- and everyone else present- knew for a fact that the suit was an illusion. She preferred looking at the illusion, as otherwise she would have to admit she knew the answer to 'Boxers or briefs?' Yoko was a flaming exhibitionist and found the stares and blushes of those foolish enough to brush away his illusion amusing. Those used to Yoko's silent jokes, however, could see that that too was an illusion, but they did not try looking past it, for fear of finding the kitsune completely naked. His eight gold tails were looking decidedly sooty from the hours spent standing here, discussing matters.

She herself was another glow of red on the barren landscape- fiery-feathered wings blended in with long red curls. She couldn't say she liked red much. It drew too much attention. But a phoenix drew attention wherever she went, so she did the best she could. Her pale blue gown made the red all the more vivid, unfortunately.

Matsuro, with his vivid dark red hair, stood out well, though the black leather the young kitsune wore muted the effect. Not that Hizashi minded at all... His gaze turned from Mischa's back to meet hers and his grin grew broader. The younger youkai was far too full of himself, but she smiled back all the same.

The dark woman currently taking in her surroundings was likely the least noticeable person there. Everything about her slouched form whispered 'don't notice me, don't look at me, don't touch me' and other antisocial things. The brown khakis looked to have seen better days- they were covered with dirt, filled with large vertical rips, and looked like they had been held in a fire- and were likely a much lighter color before her trip. The brilliant emerald green Nike t-shirt was too large for her, and Hizashi doubted it was hers at all. The woman didn't seem the type to go around with 'Just Do It' in bold black letters across her back. Though that likely explained the kitsune's grin- they lived in the gutter. Wallowed, practically.

"Gods," the woman finally whispered, her fingers massaging her injured hand.

"Doubtful," Sesshoumaru said.

"Dragons," Yoko agreed. "No one can control magical fire quite like a dragon."

"Kino has four children, even if he himself wouldn't have come," Hizashi said.

"Likely he killed Tsukikage and left the rest to the sons. The daughter was in Tokyo," Yoko said.

Mischa frowned. Hizashi recognized the look on her face. Yoko had made it once or twice in their last shogi game. Looking at the board, he could see everything, and remembered everything that happened, but something wouldn't quite click, as if he was still forgetting something important. Hizashi liked to think that it was those moves that would make or break their games. If he remembered in time, he won. If he didn't, she won.

The ex-hanyou appeared to be choosing the incorrect train of thought, but Hizashi had no idea what it was the girl thought she was forgetting.

"When'd you wake up?" Matsuro said, a friendly leer crossing his face. "Last I saw you, you were dead to the world."

Hizashi blushed in sympathy with the girl's wide-eyed stare at the kitsune slowing standing up. Trust a kitsune to completely waylay an important train of thought. Sesshoumaru snorted quietly as Yoko guffawed.

"You-" Mischa snarled, at a loss for words.

"Please, do I look like the kind of person who doesn't kiss and tell? Besides, as smashed as you were over your unhappy circumstances, I'd be very surprised you remembered anything," he continued, eyes challenging hers in a way Hizashi wasn't sure how to translate.

Mischa opened and closed her fists, eyes closed, and it was easy to tell she was counting backwards to keep from attacking the impudent kitsune.

"If we could leave the discussion of your conquests for later, kitsune, and return to the topic at hand?" Sesshoumaru said icily.

"Dragons destroyed this place, likely at least one of Kino's sons, if not all, and they brought who knows how many minions with them, since the miko's purification power destroyed the bodies, and that makes it a bit difficult to tell what wolves are missing- though obviously as none of them but Ki have arrived, it's safe to say that they're all dead," Matsuro said in a long breath. "Did I miss anything?"

Mischa had flinched at the mention of a miko, but asked no questions.

"The fact that there is still no actual proof that Kino is steadily destroying the four families to rebuild the world he lost?" Hizashi said quietly, watching Mischa's brows furrow, still trying to remember what she had forgotten. Hizashi thought it likely it had to deal with the cracked dragon seal that someone had left whispers of in the woman's mind.

There was a long silence.


	26. Twenty Five: Crescendo

Chapter Twenty-Five: Crescendo 

"Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts, while adversity is often as the rain of spring."

-Chinese Proverb

**---–**

EARTHQUAKE ROCKS JAPAN 25 May 2002 

AP- An earthquake measuring 9.7 on the Richter scale shook Japan Thursday morning. The Earthquake Research Institute at the University of Tokyo has yet to comment on its lack of warning for this latest tragedy to hit the country. Worst hit is Tokyo, the country's largest city and capital, and thought to be the epicenter for the earthquake. Entire city blocks have crumbled, subway rails have twisted out of recognition, and there is still yet no tally of the deaths this lord of earthquakes has caused. Rescuers work frantically to find the thousands still trapped in the rubble of destroyed buildings. The damages have been estimated to cost in the billions.

See EARTHQUAKE, A2

The blonde girl turned vivid green eyes on the man who handed her the paper.

"What's going on over there?" she asked in a young voice.

"It's got the stink of magic written all over," he said. "And the fact that it actually hit means something has happened to the taiyoukai. I remember, in the great Kanto earthquake back in '23-"

"Skip to the point," she said with a grin. "You reminisce too much."

"Taiyoukai have mastery of at least two elements, besides being able to use true magic. The current earth masters are Tsukikage and Sesshoumaru. And if this is the best they could lessen the quake- if they did at all- they're up against something really powerful."

"Which means that there's somebody else besides _her_ trying to work over there," she said with a sharp look.

"It would seem so. And we've been barred reentry to the country. I don't think he thought things would get this bad," the man said, running long fingers through short sandy-colored hair.

"I want to go home. We have to help."

"We can't, kiddo. He's tied us to this city pretty well. And we're both far too lacking in training to be able to free ourselves of the chains he put on us." He pulled on her long braid, the closest physical representation of their invisible bonds.

"For our own safety my tail," she said crossly, twisting her head quickly and snapping her hair out of his hands. "We need to go back, I don't care how much he wants to play with her before destroying her. This is way beyond the means of the deal."

"And don't I know it. But I also know my father well enough that he won't call off the deal for this. He's powerful enough to handle her on his own, and has too great a sense of pride to admit he's in over his head, judging by this earthquake."

"It has to involve the other taiyoukai as well," she said. "What is there powerful enough to keep all four too busy to keep magical attacks from bleeding over into the human world?"

He frowned, concentrating on the ceiling. "Nothing that I know of. Even the dragons would be hard pressed to pose a dangerous threat to the control of the taiyoukai, and they're too lacking in numbers and at odds with each other to do anything if they wanted to."

"Do you suppose the cursed jewel got reborn into another body again? It's been almost a century since the last one."

"I don't have any news of the Meirin family. That's strictly his business, not mine."

"And since when has that stopped people like us?" she asked with a grin.

"When he's powerful enough to kill you with a thought, and it's a subject he would kill over," he said, frowning at his daughter.

"We need to get back to Japan. Any master magicians in the area?"

"Unfortunately, no. Why do you think he asked us to stay here? The area does need someone, and traveling magic-users such as ourselves are always in need of a place to stay for a bit."

"It's been decades though. Someone should have permanently set up shop by now."

"Not if he told them not to. And you know he would."

"Sometimes, he really pisses me off."

"I don't think there's anyone Yoko hasn't pissed off at one time or other."

-- **Midday, May 23, Niigata, Japan --**

Chame hummed cheerfully to herself as Inu-Yasha glowered at her, a silent battle of wills as to who would break first. Kagome concentrated on projecting warmth towards the finally broken wolf pup sniffling into her shirt.

She hadn't liked that shirt anyway.

Good humor reasserted itself, and Kagome smiled at the barren landscape, dual vision reestablishing itself and showing her a lush farm and blue lake, and a spluttering little redhead treading water, gaping at something behind Kagome.

Happy memories for some, here. Mischa didn't seem to miss the place much.

Chame's tune changed from nonsensical humming to an American jingle Souta had picked up and used constantly until their mother stopped buying snack food. Souta had stopped once the supply ran out. He wasn't stupid.

'It's a Small World After All' lost its fun quality if you ran out of pocky and you had no allowance.

Inu-Yasha didn't have that threat to hold over Chame, and Kagome thought it likely the cheery, cheeky kit would simply switch to a new song if bargained improperly with. 'The Song That Doesn't End' came to mind.

She was snapped out of her thoughts as Chame's humming stopped suddenly and she stared off into the distance. Kagome opened her mouth to ask what she sensed, when Fukii stiffened, hands digging further into her shirt, and curling up tighter into the safety the miko provided.

"What's the matter?" Kagome asked, trying to subtly loosen the redhead's hands. Fukii's claws were tearing holes in her shirt and pressing into her skin, and it wouldn't be long before she drew blood.

And then she could sense something coming. And judging by the way Inu-Yasha flattened his ears back and started growling, he could sense it too.

A huge barrage of magic slammed into Fukii, sending Kagome toppling over. The ground shuddered beneath them, making the ash and dirt ripple like water. Chame ducked her head down and under her arms in an instinctive motion to protect herself from rubble that would be falling had they still been in cramped Tokyo. Inu-Yasha leaned backwards, supporting himself on his hands, too proud to give up total control and just lay and wait for the quaking to end.

Once the tremors stopped, the four slowly stood up, dusting themselves off.

"What the fuck was that?" Inu-Yasha said, glaring at Fukii- the seeming target of the attack.

She shook her head, red locks flying, and a glint of something green caught the sharper-eyed hanyou and kitsune's eyes.

Chame made it to Fukii first, and tugged the taller youkai down to eye level, her small hands brushing away Fukii's red-orange bangs to reveal a green leaf tattooed into the girl's forehead.

"The heir," Inu-Yasha said in a somewhat astonished tone.

It was what Kouga and Mikomi had been shooting for- who would expect the secondary heir to be someone who hadn't reached her majority?

Chame's features went still, eyes darkening, and she looked old. "Kouga-sama is dead then," she said solemnly, fingers tracing the marking.

Fukii's eyes lost some of the life they had gained, but they remained dry.

"I need to go see-" she started hesitantly.

"We all need to get back. This changes things," Inu-Yasha said, cutting Fukii's request mercifully short. Go see the taiyoukai about the fact they now had proof of Kouga's death. He didn't feel like watching a third set of waterworks. Nor did he think Fukii's pride would take another crying session very well. One, he would admit, was healing. Two was being a big baby.

"Could someone explain please?" Kagome whined.

"Grandfather named me his heir," Fukii snapped out. "Only on very rare occasions will an heir name their own heir. Usually the taiyoukai has a list of successors, but only one true heir. The heir naming their own heir is meant for emergencies where someone knows the entire list, and the secondary heir can't be on it. It's a safety precaution. The fact that the power of the North just slammed into me like an elephant means that Tsukikage-sama died and her power went to Kouga-sama. And he just died." She stalked off in the direction she had come, scratching her forehead furiously.

As they trotted after the wolf youkai, Kagome could easily see the family resemblance. Stalking off with waiting for apologies or explanations, and a lecture voice that could ice over the sun. If the mood had been different, she would have giggled over the fact that it was likely from the younger-looking Fukii that Mischa had learned it from.

As it was, she could lift her spirits high enough to even pretend to smile. Something far more powerful than what now resided in Fukii was coming, and she knew instinctively it wasn't friendly.

**-- Maebashi, Japan --**

Souta found himself raised a good two feet in the air, staring down a pullover-clad arm into angry dark red eyes.

"What the fuck did you think you were doing?" the man asked.

"Were you trying to kill us all?" The other man looked calmer, except for the same angry eyes.

"There was something human," Souta said, still not sure what he had been doing himself.

"Yeah," the one holding him up said. "You."

"No, my element's air," Souta argued. "That wasn't. It felt more like-" Souta stopped. It felt more like Mischa. He shivered. The dragons mistook the faint sense of fear to be for them.

"Earth?" The calmer one said.

Souta nodded. It wasn't a lie- Mischa had said she had earth magic. And if in their escape from the holding cell, he, the air user, was sent to the waking world and freedom, it made sense that Mischa, the untrained earth elementalist and his opposite, was sent in the opposite direction- further captivity.

"Put him down, Jiro," Ayame said, tapping her fist on her brother's back. "He has absolutely no idea what could have happened, and since it didn't, there isn't a problem."

"That was your freebie, human." The dragon opened his fist, releasing Souta's shirt, and Souta landed gracefully on his feet, to the disappointment of the elder two dragons. Ayame sighed in annoyance when Souta glowered up at the dragons cornering him.

"Grow up," she snapped at the trio.

The three turned their heads to the girl. Souta gave her a sheepish grin. Jiro glowered. The third- Ichiro- simply shook his head in mock annoyance.

"Aya-chan, you should not order your elders about so."

"We deserve your respect and obedience, not your impertinence," Jiro added in, looking down his nose pointedly, expression ruined by the smirk playing across his lips.

"Whatever," she said with a snort.

The reply was cut off as all three dragons stared at the cliff face in horror.

Souta turned around slowly.

The dragon entombed in the mountain was moving. He was still asleep, but moving all the same.

"An air elementalist, especially a human, couldn't cause that," Ayame said quickly, before her brothers could get angry with the teenager again.

"There's something else in there," Jiro said.

"And it is drawing all the magic in the area to it," Ichiro said.

"I don't feel any pull," Souta said, eyes transfixed by the sight of the dragon.

Both men turned suspicious gazes on Souta.

"You don't feel it?" the two asked in unison.

"Not a pull," Souta said. "But I can feel something in there."

The two exchanged worried glances while Ayame frowned at her friend.

Simultaneously, Ichiro silently commanded the mountain to move and Jiro summoned a wind to blast through the mountain. Or at least tried to. When their magic hit the mountain, the energy twisted as something else came in contact with it, and the power went dormant, nestling behind the cliff face with the rest of the energies being drawn in.

"Oh fuck," Jiro said.

"Who did he capture and why didn't he notice their abilities?" Ichiro continued.

"What's going on?" Ayame asked waspishly, annoyed to not understand what her brothers were talking about. Souta sympathized completely.

"Every so often," the kimono-clad dragon explained, "Father runs across someone he needs alive, but not for very long. As the taiyoukai reinforce the seal here religiously, it is an excellent location to put a soul and its powers until it is needed to draw upon."

"Except he fucking didn't realize whoever he captured can manipulate youki," Jiro continued. "And not only can he manipulate youki, it looks like he can steal it as well. If we're lucky, he won't tap into the seal before letting all hell loose to try and escape."

"What would happen then?" Souta asked.

Jiro gave him a feral grin. "You'll be wishing Ayame had let us eat you."

"Because Ryukotsusei will be fully awakened and pissed beyond all reason," Ichiro clarified.

The ground beneath them shuddered.

Ayame looked worriedly south. "And something like that will happen."

"What the hell was that?" Souta asked as the tremors stopped. The dragons ignored him.

"Not pleased at all," Ichiro said, shuddering slightly.

"Should we wait around and pray he isn't coming here or do we make tracks west?" Jiro asked.

"I do not think he has noticed our defection yet. We should wait for Saburo."

Souta looked pleadingly at Ayame to explain. She shook her head, indicating that this wasn't the time.

"We can't wait forever," Ayame said.

"We have waited your entire life, Aya-chan, a few more days- or hours- will not hurt," Ichiro said.

"Because if you think we'll let dear old uncle Ryu continue controlling Father, you're sadly mistaken," Jiro said with a snarl.

Souta decided that he was safer not knowing. Because they still might be hungry, and if he asked a few too many impertinent questions, he might find himself being a midday snack.

And he was too fond of living to cause that to happen on purpose.

**-- Tokyo, Japan --**

Yoshi had spent almost thirty years living in Tokyo. This was the first time the ground rippled like water. And it was the first time he had seen parked cars bob like ducks at a shooting arcade. The cigarette fell out of his mouth.

He had been through earthquakes before. This wasn't one. And if the angry surge of youki that swept through the sky northwards was any sign, this was only the beginning of trouble.

The street continued to ripple beneath his feet.

And above him, the massive skyscrapers continued to creak dangerously, even as their shattered windows rained glass down upon him, only to be swept away by the tempest of wind circling him.

"This would happen while the taiyoukai are tied up in defending their titles from a power-mad dragon," he said, annoyed, glaring up into the sky at the towering buildings.

One's support beams finally gave out, not up to the increasing pressure of the earthquake still shaking the entire island.

"Not around me, you're not." Sharp winds sliced through cement like it was hot butter, turning the falling rubble into so much ash that it seemed a late snowfall. Bodies continued to fall, only to be cushioned by warm gusts of air as they neared their impending death by high impact collision with hard pavement. Most were unconscious, and Yoshi didn't care about an open show of his powers. Things would be so hectic and confused that they would believe themselves delusional. Or that it was a miracle.

But he was no god, only one air master trying to protect the city he called home.

He could only hope that the other elementalists and youkai scattered throughout the city would keep their heads about them as well. If the taiyoukai couldn't prevent the destruction, it would be up to them to prevent the entire city from falling into the sea.

He could only hope the outcome of the impending fight with the dragon that had caused this would be worth the price that was being paid.

_"So young to have to do such a terrible thing to the one you love."_

He shook his head to clear the unwanted memory from his mind, too tied up in controlling the fierce winds to wonder why he was recalling her words.

Around him, as buildings gave up their ability to stand, skyscrapers shattered into ash, and residents of the buildings piled.

Across the city, fire, air, earth, and water each found ways to lessen the destruction. And the few true magicians worked to stop the earthquake from collapsing the entire southern starboard of the island into the raging sea. And only one thing ran through their minds.

Where were the lords, and why had they given up their responsibility of keeping magic from causing wide-scale destruction?

And only one sweaty, quickly exhausting air master knew the answer. They were battling to the death, for control of the entire magical world.

All because one son had not been content with his lot in life and tried to conquer the world through lies, assassination, and stolen power. And it was happening again.

Yoshi was breathing in more dust than air, but it didn't matter. The moment his magic had awakened for the first time, he hadn't needed to breathe to survive. It was just habit. But the unconscious bodies of innocents slowly falling around him, they did.

One last expenditure of power, and he would be completely spent. The winds that circled the mile around him sped up, circling faster as they gathered the dust and rubble into one whirling earth tornado, and sped towards the sea, safely dumping its cargo into the water.

Save for one cheery little breeze that caught the exhausted master as he crumpled to the ground. The breeze thrummed power through him, and the unconscious man disappeared in a puff of pale lavender smoke.

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

Dragon flight, no matter how improbable it was for a wingless creature to fly, was remarkably fast. There were a great deal of things faster than it, but they were celestial bodies and not as bound to the rules of magic set by the earth.

Magic stated anything could travel faster than the speed of light, but only if they were willing to expend a great deal of power in doing so. So the ability that all living things held the possibility of was rarely used, apart from dire emergencies and acts of gods.

This was neither, but he had stolen enough power over the years for the price to be small change compared to what it would cost others. For the weak, the price was their life once their task was completed. Thus why it was an ability of the last resort.

And so it was mere minutes that were all that had lain between Tokyo and Niigata for the powerful dragon, instead of the usual hours.

He reached the taiyoukai just before Kagome did.

He could almost hear the collective "Oh fuck" that ran through all of their minds as they finally noticed the serpentine figure in the sky.

By then, however, it was too late.

**-----**

Flames so hot they were blue rained down upon the entire area. The air was thick with the amount of magic the dragon had poured into the flames, ensuring that it wouldn't be just fire that would kill those standing below.

Yoko appeared startled as a gold shield suddenly encapsulated him as the flames entered his danger zone, but he grinned mischievously upwards and gave the irate dragon a finger before the sphere closed around him and hid him from sight.

Sesshoumaru crossed his arms over his chest and disappeared behind a curtain of blue flame.

Hizashi made no move to counter the fire that hit her, and Kagome bit back a scream as the youngest of the taiyoukai caught fire.

Kagome held her hand up and a pink shield circled around her and the three demons she stood with. The flames and magic bounced off harmlessly towards other, more susceptible targets.

The magically endowed flames disappeared as they hit Matsuro, vanishing away into the youki sink that he had been made into. The actual flames themselves left no marks on the fire elementalist, and coalesced into a small glowing blue ball in his hand that he tossed back at the dragon in an irritated manner. Some of the dragon's beard caught fire, but it quickly was put out.

Mischa crossed her arms in front of her face and bowed her head as fire coursed down her body and deep into the ground at her feet, sending a mushroom of earth into the sky. Her skin turned into an ugly shade of red and large welts rose up across her exposed skin.

The magic and flames finally decreased, vanishing into the handsome redhead's body and disappearing down the energy sink that was a part of him. Kagome spared a moment to wonder what had happened to him and how much magic could be stolen before it became over saturated and exploded.

Sesshoumaru stood unharmed, as did Yoko once he remembered to drop the gold shield that hid him from view. Hizashi's flaming form disappeared into ash. There was no time to question the action.

The pink shield around the four dropped, and Inu-Yasha quickly had Tetsusaiga out, yelling at the sky-bound dragon to come down and fight like a man. Fukii sent two shuriken spinning skyward that clinked uselessly off the dragon's scales. Kagome summoned her bow, and drew back a glowing arrow. Chame crossed her arms over her chest as she studied the serpentine shape hovering above the wide, lifeless field.

Mischa, far too used to pain, barely felt the burns of fire and overexposure to magic that covered most of her body. Amber light flared brighter, and the taiyoukai realized she had instinctively grounded herself in her element and acted as a conduit for the huge amounts of magic the dragon had thrown into the assault. The side effect was that there was now a great deal more earth magic present than there had been, but as it was still demonic in nature, the young woman couldn't touch it. They, however, could use the dragon's own magic against him.

Before they could however, the dragon's form wavered, as if they were seeing it in the reflection of water, and it slowly pulled itself apart into two complete, slightly smaller forms. And then again.

Before long, the sky was filled with relatively normal-sized dragons. As one, they landed on the ground and shifted into more human forms. A dozen identical green-and-gray haired men stood interspersed between the others.

Kagome let her arrow fly in a silent signal to let the real fight begin.


	27. Twenty Six: Gambit

Author's Note: You know what's really annoying? One of the first things I did was make up scents for everyone. And I've never had a chance to work it into the story! The really annoying thing is some of the scents show something of their temperaments, while others their relations (family members tend to have similar scents), and most of them give away their base element (even if they aren't imbalanced enough to actually use an element- i.e. Kagome). Oh well, I might as well add it in here just for the curious. (And to see if anyone is bold enough to try and figure out the little mysteries contained therein.)

_Inu-Yasha_- dog, pine, and autumn (fire)

_Kagome_- sakura blossoms and light rain (water) (also uses a lavender soap that masks much of her scent)

_Mischa_- wolf, tea leaves, and moonlight (earth)

_Matsuro_- fox, sandalwood, and sunshine (air, fire)

_Souta_- fresh cut grass and light rain (air) (as an air elementalist, his scent is usually masked completely)

_Chame_- fox, heather, and sunshine

_Fukii_- wolf, moonlight, and jasmine (earth)

_Ayame_- dragon (smells like a mixture of lizard and fire), winter, and snow (water)

_Yoshi_- sandalwood and stormy nights (air) (as an air master, he has control over his scent. This is what his true scent is, though currently it's light rain and oak)

**Chapter Twenty-Six: Gambit**

_"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."_

- Mark Twain

**-- Midday, May 23, Niigata, Japan --**

One of the twelve copies had disintegrated with Kagome's first arrow- a lucky shot that had yet to be repeated after the eleven remaining clones started cursing up a silent storm about liars, bodyguards, and being idiot enough to not see through disguises.

Mischa smirked, easily understanding his ire. She was still bound with his spell against the use of holy magic, but she was not the miko he had thought she was.

Kagome with her bow, Chame beside her a dark light of magic, and Fukii behind on guard for any of the dragon clones that might approach the weakest targets- and none of the eleven remaining so much as blinked in the girls' direction. Mischa frowned, wondering what game it was he was playing. He was setting them up for something.

Three dragons faced a dual-wielding Sesshoumaru, and another three surrounded a smug-looking, unarmed Yoko. Mischa and Matsuro were back-to-back, facing off yet another three, leaving the last two to a Tetsusaiga-wielding Inu-Yasha. And the four fights had arranged themselves that, should any of the three girls try a long-ranged attack, missing would mean hitting one of their allies.

Fukii and Chame weren't as worried about that as Kagome, mostly because it was her power that the youkai worried about. Injuries from holy magic healed almost as slowly as humans' wounds did.

The more magically aware of the group had noticed that the energy contained in each of the dragons was singly smaller than the original dragon had been, but together didn't even approach the amount of power the dragon had arrived with. The energy also easily bled from one dragon to another, giving no clue as to who was the real dragon and which ones were just clones, puppets. Powerful, solid puppets, but mindless and bound to Kino's will.

Mischa pulled her long knife out, realizing the utter futility of human strength trying to injure a youkai. Youkai didn't bruise, and human fists were barely strong enough to break bones.

A tickle of fur at her side reminded her of the kitsune at her back. She spun sideways, and a dragon bull rushed past her and Matsuro, skidding to a halt in front of her.

"Do try and remember not to dodge and make them hit me," she groused. The tail had been a warning of which side was being attacked. She wasn't particularly grateful.

The three sprang at them in one fluid motion, and there was no conversation as they fought to keep from getting killed.

One dragon split off from his fight Inu-Yasha and a glowing arrow sliced through fabric, barely missing the skin. His dodge of Inu-Yasha's wide sweep of his sword had left him far enough away that Kagome didn't need to worry about hitting anyone else if she missed. Fukii stepped between the dragon and the miko, intent upon protecting the young woman who had boldly called herself part of Fukii's family.

The dragons had yet to resort to magic of any kind, and Mischa toyed with the idea that only the true dragon could use his magic. Or else they were saving the energy up for something.

Both Yoko and Sesshoumaru appeared to be only toying with their opponents- Sesshoumaru was better with a single blade than two, a sure sign that the dog demon was extending his fight to either test his opponent or make the dragon underestimate him. And Mischa knew the dragon wasn't stupid enough to underestimate the son of the youkai who had bound Ryukotsusei to eternal slumber.

It looked as though both taiyoukai were holding conversations with the dragons. Dragon. Mischa wasn't sure how the clones were to be explained. Neither could she hear the conversations over the din of battle.

And then she realized that the lack of magic had been to build up a false sense of security. Even as she thought this, one of the dragons was casting a spell.

As her knife slashed through a spell meant to incapacitate both her and the kitsune behind her, she faintly heard the redhead chuckle and say, "For a human, you aren't completely useless."

When his opponent landed a kick and knocked the redhead roughly into her back, she growled, teeth grinding together as she collected yet more youki-induced burns. "Even for a kitsune, you're amazingly useless."

Which he was. None of the cuts he had garnered so far in the fight had healed, his speed wasn't as fast as it could be, and just the fact that a clone could land a hit on him was sign enough that the kitsune wasn't feeling well. Though she could feel that a part of his magic was just as strong as ever. Why his youki would be completely drained and yet his fire magic untouched, she had no idea.

Two sets of beards caught fire as his anger flared. She snorted with amusement. She could almost feel him grinning as he realized it as well.

"What can I say? You sucked me dry night before last."

The next attack the dragon made caught her throat as she was momentarily stunned by his vulgar words. Before panic could set in, she had twisted her legs upward, grabbing onto her attacker's arms, and pulled herself backwards and downwards, sending the surprised dragon flying towards Matsuro.

"You fucking pervert!" she blasted out, Matsuro's head swiveling to look startled at the outburst. He grinned, realizing it had been a warning, and he lazily sent claws through the airborne dragon's body, decapitating him.

The clone vanished.

"Is it just me," she said, ducking underneath claws reaching to tear her throat out as another dragon attacked, "or is a lot of his energy shifting from one body to another?"

"Duck," Matsuro replied. Both dragons sprang in one movement. Matsuro jumped upwards as Mischa ducked under the combined attack and rolled, knocking the legs out from under one and sending him sprawling into the other. Matsuro came back down out of the sky, claws barely scratching skin, as the two quickly broke apart to avoid their airborne opponent.

"They are toying with us," Mischa said, springing back up to her feet and jumping sideways to avoid another attack.

"Most of the energy in the clones is in those ones around Sesshoumaru-sama and Yoko-sama. Not too much left for the rest of us."

She hissed in pain as her weaker human senses misjudged distance and claws raked across her front. "Thank the gods for that," she said acerbically.

"I'm rather fond of that shirt, Meirin-san. Could you at least pretend to not want to completely ruin it?" Matsuro said, blocking a punch. "Not that I wouldn't mind at all if it completely tore off you." With a sharp tug, he knocked the dragon outside of the duo's threat range.

And right into a space with a clean shot for the archer. It vanished into pink dust as Kagome's arrow embedded itself in its chest. Three more clones disappeared as Yoko, Sesshoumaru, and Inu-Yasha finished off opponents.

"It is just fabric," she said coolly, arm raised to block a high kick from the dragon she was fighting. Suddenly he stopped and pulled back, out of reach and out of her threat range. She stood between him and Kagome, so she doubted her cousin would be shooting at him.

It was then that Mischa noticed the silent chanting. Each of the six remaining dragon clones was silently mouthing a spell.

The others appeared to have noticed the same thing.

It was too late.

The one fighting Fukii gave the young wolf a violent kick that sent her tumbling into Kagome, making the girl drop her bow while fighting to stay on her feet.

"I name you, Inari," he said, pointing over Chame's head to the startled Yoko, "and I bind you and yours."

Black ropes of light sprang out of the ground around the three kitsune. Chame dropped like a stone, feet entangled, and before she could start the words of a spell, she was gagged. Yoko- looking far more startled than Mischa thought he should- put up little resistance before finding himself bound and gagged, gold magic beating against the ropes, but not finding a weak point.

Matsuro had jumped into the air to avoid the binding spell, but the dragon's magic was more tenacious than similar spells of others. One long black tentacle snapped after him, wrapping harshly around one leg and tugging him violently downward.

The dragon sprang back at Mischa.

Too focused on keeping her last remaining opponent from killing her, she never noticed 170 pounds of muscled kitsune crashing down towards the two combatants. Matsuro's head slammed down on the fist that had been about to punch through her face, and Mischa crumpled under the unexpected dead weight.

The black magic ropes made short work of the kitsune and unexpectedly started on her.

_("I bind you and yours.")_

_("You are __**mine**__, as long as you are in Tokyo, hanyou. This is your only warning.")_

"No," she whimpered, struggling to get out from under the unconscious kitsune, away from the dark magic so intent on taking captives.

Heavy weight pressed down on her free arm, and she wasn't surprised to see the foot belonged to the last of the trio of dragons they had been fighting. The smirk playing across his face said he knew exactly what was going on. Which was more than she could say for herself.

She quietly panicked, pulling as far down into the earth as she could, trying to escape the constant weight and fire the kitsune and dragon were on her. Pain freed her repression of her magic, and green life sprang around her. The dragon's weight shifted further onto the foot holding her down. Her arm snapped, and she screamed. The foot hit the ground suddenly- as did Matsuro- as Mischa vanished completely into the earth.

A glowing pink arrow shot through him before he could follow, and he disappeared.

**-----**

The dragon Fukii had been fighting had her up by the throat, slowly choking the young wolf.

Kagome spared a moment to wonder why youkai liked choking things.

Sesshoumaru destroyed the two clones still fighting him in the confusion of the binding spells, as Inu-Yasha politely took out the two that had eagerly eyed the bound and helpless Yoko.

There were no more clones- all their energy had coalesced back into one dragon, and he was currently holding a thrashing, scratching redheaded wolf pup hell-bent on at least hurting him before he finally got around to snapping her neck.

The clones had done what they had been set out to do- the large group had been reduced to two able-bodied fighters, one miko, and the wolf pup captive in the dragon's hands. The three kitsune were all unconscious- only Matsuro's blackout was from a blow, the other two from the secondary effects of the binding spell. Of Mischa and the phoenix, there was no sign.

Kagome knelt to pick up her bow.

"I would not do that, if I were you, miko," he said, fist squeezing tighter around Fukii's throat, cutting off her string of curses and replacing them with choked gargles.

Kagome glared furiously, but stood back up, empty-handed.

His grip relaxed minutely, and Fukii returned to her futile struggle to make the stronger demon release her. "Drop your weapons, dogs," he ordered with a smirk. "The last of the North is within my grasp, and you would not want me to accidentally break her neck now, would you?"

Neither made a move to follow his order. Kagome wondered if they were planning something or if they just plain didn't care about the young redhead. The thought reminded her of the other two redheads. Matsuro. Yoko.

But Kino had said Inari.

Fukii's claws weren't digging in as deeply anymore. The wolf pup was weakening. Kagome tried thinking up a way to get the dragon to drop his hostage. Her mind kept swirling back towards his earlier words, though.

Inari, Shinto god of rice, patron of prosperity for farmers and agriculture merchants. Androgynous- portrayed as female or male, depending on the whim of the artist. And always flanked by a pair of kitsune.

Her eyes moved to Chame, bound in magic black ropes of neither youkai nor human origin. Though something resonated within her, telling her she should recognize the magic from somewhere.

Inu-Yasha was growling, sword leveled at the dragon, but wise enough to make no comment about his manhandling of the redhead.

Shinto _god_, she thought with sudden realization. _**Divine**_ magic held them captive, and its familiarity was because her holy powers came from a similar place.

And he had said Inari, who was always flanked by kitsune.

"There is one other," Sesshoumaru stated, his katana ringing with finality as he slid them back into their sheaths.

Fukii's arms dropped to her sides, and her head bowed down, breathing ragged. While Kino's grip was not the tight chokehold it had been when he threatened her death to Kagome, the wolf was still slowly losing oxygen. Youkai might be able to live without it longer and regenerate its damages quicker, but not while it was still happening.

"Yoko-sama is Inari," Kagome said, giving voice to thought.

Sesshoumaru gave her a flat 'why are you dwelling on that' look. Inu-Yasha gave a harsh bark of laughter, bitter and mocking- as if he didn't believe her. Kino snorted amusedly.

"Well, yes, you are the brilliant one, aren't you?" he replied sarcastically.

"But Yoko-sama is youkai," Kagome argued. "Inari-sama is kami, not youkai."

Sesshoumaru gave the unconscious, bound Yoko a sharp look.

"Kagome, could you fucking leave the small talk until after we fucking kill him?"

No one pointed out it was hard to carry on a conversation with a corpse.

"Kill me?" Kino repeated amusedly. "I am afraid you are sadly mistaken, half breed. It is I that shall do the killing. I have already started." Fukii's skin had paled considerably in the time she had been held captive. Kagome didn't want to ask how long youkai could go without breathing. Longer than humans, but Fukii was unconscious, so it couldn't be something they did often. "If you would like to keep the deaths to a minimum, however, I am willing to bargain."

Sesshoumaru arched a silver eyebrow in an unspoken question. Kagome frowned mistrustfully. Inu-Yasha was more outspoken about his skepticism.

"Fuck you, you overgrown garden snake."

Kagome's lips twitched in amusement, a kitsune-like thought sneaking through her mind.

"The miko for the last of the North. You would not want me to have the power that Kouga so stupidly gave her, do you? I might have let her live, had he not." No one was fooled by his words. The broken landscape around them was proof enough of what had likely happened to Kouga and the fate he had in store for the young wolf. "The miko is just as useless- but a great deal more of a threat to you than a taiyoukai-in-training."

Fukii had no one left, and Kagome had told her that there were those who still cared. Even if the brothers disagreed, she wouldn't let the wolf stay in Kino's hands. Fukii had trusted her. And Kagome wasn't about to betray her cousin like that.

"Very well then," Sesshoumaru stated.

"Like fucking hell, you bastard!"

"Inu-Yasha," he said in a deceptively calm voice. "You try this Sesshoumaru's patience."

Kagome didn't dare turn to watch the argument between the brothers. Kino did and smiled maliciously, even as he slung Fukii's still form over his shoulder.

"What is one human for someone needed to control the youkai of the North? Without the wolf clan leading, there will be chaos. Or else the dragons will take control, and do you really think that will be any better, little brother?"

"You fucking moron, she's a fucking miko! THE fucking miko! Last of the Meirin family, and if you think I'm going to fucking let you hand her over to that shit-faced bastard just for a scrawny little bitch who can't even keep herself from getting knocked out and held fucking hostage, you've got a shit load of screws loose in that hollow head of yours!"

It was sweet, in its crass fashion.

"You were warned what happened when making promises before thinking them through," Sesshoumaru scolded.

Kagome had at most thirty years ahead of her. No Meirin had ever lived past fifty. But Fukii was just a child, with conceivably several millennia of years ahead of her. Just a small child, who had her entirely family ripped from her only the day before. Kagome would not have her death on her hands, not if she could help it.

And from the malicious smile that remained on Kino's face, he knew what she was thinking. One of two miko who would have dealings with youkai, with a duty to protect innocents. There was never a choice to consider.

She saw the trap that would never have worked on anyone else. And she walked into it with eyes wide open.

"Put her down first," Kagome stepped, taking a single step forward.

And the smile grew even more vicious, even as Inu-Yasha stopped his rant at his brother.

"The hell you're going along with what that fuck says!"

Kino tossed Fukii's limp body towards the irate hanyou. The flow of curses that spewed from his mouth never paused, even as he cradled the lifeless redhead to his chest.

Kagome stepped forward, stormy eyes never leaving Kino's malevolent red. No fear. Not that it would matter with someone like him. One way or the other, he would get what he wanted. But he was getting it on her terms.

Even as Inu-Yasha untangled himself from Fukii, Kino's clawed hand reached out and punched through Kagome's stomach. Right where the scar was that had appeared on her fifteenth birthday, along with the sarcastic jabs of a mysterious presence only she could feel, see, and hear.

Kagome screamed, and faintly she could hear the presence whisper. _:: You brave little fool. ::_

Then his hand closed down on something- something inside her very soul- and with a sharp jerk, he pulled it out. And the ever-present presence was gone.

She screamed again, sinking to her knees, hands at her side, trying to stop the bleeding.

Before Kino could shift to dragon form and escape, Inu-Yasha rushed him.

Sesshoumaru moved forward to stand over Kagome as the fight quickly moved away from her. "Miko," he said coolly, "try to remember your head."

Anger lessened the pain. Miko this, miko that. Kagome! Just plain Kagome, college student and waitress! Normality was obviously too much to hope for, what with demons for relatives and dragons punching holes in her and stealing her very soul...

Miko. Moron, she thought, you can heal yourself. Admittedly a miko's powers worked better on others than on herself- something about sacrifice and duty and selflessness- but she could at least make it scab over so that she'd stop bleeding.

Though the red of blood did make for a nice change from the dull monotony of green-speckled gray the ground was.

Concentrating, she tried focusing her magic to heal the bloody wound beneath her hands.

There was nothing. Her magic swirled about her, powerful and volatile as always. But it refused to heed her summons. It was as if a bridge between herself and her holy powers had been destroyed.

"Oh gods," she whispered, quickly stripping her torn blouse, leaving her skin prickling with cold under a flesh-colored camisole. With practiced ease- practice she didn't remember having, not for a situation like this, but there was a familiarity to it all- she shredded the blouse and formed it into a makeshift bandage, pressing it to her side.

He had taken something from her. Something that made her her. The focus between normal and magical, what made hanyou able to use neither human nor youkai magic as they trudged their way through the world. Something that had given her balance.

The presence was gone. And, as she peered blearily up through, heavy bangs as the dragon taunted Inu-Yasha, not bothering to attack, merely sidestep wild swings, she could see that he held something in his closed hand. And with the extra senses that a miko had, even without the ability to draw on her magic, she could feel the presence in it.

Something bound her and its fate together. And now the stakes of the game they played had been raised.

She rose unsteadily to her feet and took slow, steady steps towards Inu-Yasha, the dragon, and the unconscious wolf on the ground between them and her.

Sesshoumaru followed her, silent as death.

He knew a great deal more about her than he let on. But she was beginning to understand how things needed to go.

"I would like that back," she said in firm voice, making sure she was between the dragon and where Inu-Yasha had gently set Fukii down, not wanting to draw Kino's attention back to her. He would have to go through her first to get the wolf back. She held her head regally high, even as she was dwarfed by the three men. "The bargain was for me itself, not for any of my possessions."

The dragon backhanded Inu-Yasha in his next attack, sending him skidding past Kagome and her silent shadow. He smiled a vicious, wholly unwelcome smile as she made her way to stand directly before him.

"Really, child, do you honestly think a youkai to make bargains with a human? I have given you your puppy back, and have from you what I want, and you dare to say that I must return it because I did not specify what of yours that I wished? I think not, miko."

Even though he stood behind her, Kagome could practically see the icy look Sesshoumaru sent the dragon. Youkai lived and died by their words, promises, and honor. It was what she had been playing for when she spoke. She had forgotten that if he were powerful enough to turn against the taiyoukai, he would not mind stepping on a few mere humans along the way.

"The bargain was not for the miko's soul." Ice dripped off his every word, and Kagome shivered in spite of herself. Kino took no notice of the tone.

"Perhaps she should have specified that, rather than jumping headlong into a deal with a dragon like the foolish little girl she is."

"You specifically said the miko. You have not taken the miko," Sesshoumaru said. "You have simply taken _from_ the miko. This Sesshoumaru suggests you remedy your actions immediately."

"I think not," the green-haired man said, shifting form. A large silver, serpentine shape hung in the sky as he spoke again. "When we meet again, pup, do try to have something more intimidating than that look in your eyes."

Sesshoumaru snapped a green whip dripping in acid towards the dragon. The dragon flew higher, laughing maliciously.

"You will have to be better than that to even equal your father, pup."

The dragon flew off.

Inu-Yasha was finally regaining his feet, and Kagome spared a glance in his direction. His lack of argument became obvious- the dragon's attack had dislocated his jaw, if not unhinged it completely. She wasn't sure he could even use it.

He tried anyway. "Umph thm HUHH!"

"Indeed," Sesshoumaru replied, even as his gaze remained in the sky, smirk firmly in place.

Kagome frowned. The Lord of the West looked far too smug for what had happened.

"Why do you look like the cat among the canaries?" she asked.

He raised an eyebrow at the cat remark, but answered the question. "He has no idea what it is he holds. Merely assumptions."

Kagome would have pressed the matter, but she was too busy bleeding into one of her nicer blouses.

Inu-Yasha steamed, but with his ruined jaw, there was little he could say about the matter.

Kagome slowly knelt next to Fukii. The wolf pup opened a bleary blue eye as Kagome's free hand touched her cheek softly.

"Fucking martyrs, you humans," the redhead rasped.

"You weren't actually unconscious, were you?" Kagome asked shrewdly.

"Playing dead was safer than continuing to piss him off." The scratchiness of Fukii's voice told Kagome that the pup wasn't pretending to be injured. "Quit bleeding. It's making me hungry."

Kagome's hand pulled back from the wolf sharply. She could feel the amusement coming from the brothers at the comment, but neither spoke, Inu-Yasha because he couldn't, Sesshoumaru because he was not prone to speech.

"Youkai humor leaves much to be desired," she said with a sigh.

Fukii rolled over onto her back, cobalt eyes locking with hers. "I was quite serious. We didn't have breakfast, not to mention I'm injured, and, as carnivores, the smell of blood really sets youkai off. Sesshoumaru-sama would never admit to it, and the hanyou doesn't feel it as strongly as a true youkai, not to mention he's more of an herbivore."

Inu-Yasha made a garbled noise.

"Oh shut up," Fukii said. She closed her eyes. "And why haven't you healed yourself? Or is that forbidden to priestesses?"

"Whatever he did, it took away my focus. I can't reach my powers," Kagome admitted, pressing her makeshift bandage further into her side. "I can still use my miko senses, but the tie between me and my magic is gone. I need to get it back."

Fukii snorted. "He's probably been after it for years. Good luck trying."

"We have more pressing matters to consider," Sesshoumaru said, walking on silent feet up to the two. "Hizashi and the girl have not returned, and there is an imposter here that this Sesshoumaru must deal with."

Kagome looked around. He was right about one thing- neither the phoenix nor her cousin was there. Kagome tried to remember when Mischa had disappeared.

Fukii placed a hand over Kagome's and coaxed the miko to let go of the bloody blouse.

"What are you doing?" Kagome asked, distracted from her thoughts.

The girl placed a clawed hand gently on the still-bleeding wound.

"Well if you're not going to stop bleeding, I'm going to have to do it for you. He," she nodded her head to the silver-haired youkai staring at Yoko's still form, "doesn't care, and the half-breed can't. At least not without more intimacy than you'd like," she added with a snicker.

Inu-Yasha made an incoherent noise of outrage. Kagome raised a hand to her mouth to keep from either blushing or laughing.

Soft, pale green light- power she recognized from the earthquake earlier- surrounded the wolf girl's hand as she sat up, a small frown of concentration on her face.

Kagome wanted to say something about youkai magic and priestesses, but the soft caress of magic against her side distracted her from refusing the help. She was a miko, and an expert on understanding emotions. And the magic Fukii was using was nothing but gentle. Even if Fukii claimed to hate humans and hanyou, the affection that underlay the power she was so clumsily using said that Kagome had changed her feelings somewhat.

Or else that the poor wolf was so desperate for anybody to realize how much she had lost that she clung to the first person to try to understand her pain.

Kagome sighed.

Fukii pulled her hand back, and she could sense faint feelings of amused confusion from Sesshoumaru, and Kagome wondered what game he was playing.

"It will scar," Fukii said, tone slightly apologetic.

"It'll have company," Kagome said wryly, recalling the star-shaped scar already there.

And now she could sense the interest coming off all three demons. Youkai and hanyou didn't scar, so they found humans vastly amusing. A sign of weakness, she sometimes thought. They were strong enough that little scarred them, but even the most minor of cuts could cause a human to scar.

A wide scar cutting down the left side of a face came to mind. Though the man had lived in Tokyo even longer than she'd been alive, nobody could remember when he got it. He'd always had it. Funny, she couldn't remember anyone ever mentioning knowing him as a child.

Why was it coming to mind?

The was a flash of black and violet out of the corner of her eye, and four heads turned to the source.

Yoko was gone and a beautiful, familiar-looking raven-haired vixen stood where he had lain, a frown marring her face.

Kagome glanced quickly at Chame. The kit was still completely tied in the seal and black bindings that Kino had used on her, and her features were still as the spell kept her unconscious. She looked at Matsuro. He was pale from blood loss, and his body was covered in a crisscross of cuts that said the dragon had not been gentle in his fight with the kitsune.

So why was Yoko free and shifted into a different form?

"I name you, Inari, and I bind you and yours," Fukii said, her thoughts parallel to Kagome's.

"But she is not one of his," Sesshoumaru stated, claws flexing.

Kagome knew exactly why her face was familiar. She had seen it once before, a study in violet, one crayoned portrait among many.

Matsuro and Chame's mother.


	28. Twenty Seven: Battles Won and Lost

**Chapter Twenty-Seven: Battles Won and Lost**

"_Men are natural warriors but a woman in battle is truly bloodthirsty."_

- Old Scottish saying

**-- Afternoon, May 23, Maebashi, Japan --**

"The three of you had gone missing, so I asked myself, if I pissed off my father, where would I go to hide?" Saburo explained. "So here I am, and here the three of you are. And a human." He sniffed the air delicately. "Meirin."

Souta wisely said nothing, simply stared at the man.

"So what brings you here?" Saburo finished.

"We were waiting for you," Ayame said. "They seem to think it's a nice time to move."

"And what's with the snack?"

"I could ask you the same thing," Ayame snapped.

"Children," Ichiro said in a warning voice.

"Right, right, fratricide later, revolution now," Ayame said, sticking out her tongue at her eldest brother.

Souta wavered between wanting to ask and wanting to retain the safety of ignorance. After recalling the fact that they still considered him to be a snack, he decided that silence was golden and that humans should be seen and not heard, though not being seen was good too.

There was a sharp flash of light and heat, and his senses went dead...

**-----**

Hizashi had known even before attempting elemental travel that her destination would be waylaid. She had recognized the spell buried deep under the layers of raw power he had blasted into the wasteland of the North.

But she had been relatively sure of where the final destination would be, and she became the self-immolating firebird with little concern for what else the spell might carry. There was little that could hurt her flames.

While she had been expecting the destination, she had not expected company already there. Her reaction to the dragons was instinctive.

"Murderers," she hissed as the flames of her elemental travel faded. The flames burst back into life, taking two even as they turned, startled at her appearance. A third dived for cover, nimbler than his brothers. The fourth was a girl, standing next to a boy who was undoubtedly a Meirin.

She ignored the girl. The house of the phoenix had no fight with her. Water elementalist though she was, she had nothing to do with the destruction of the Eastern family.

And she had no doubts as to what had happened to the Northern family, not now.

Still in the form of the great four-winged phoenix that only she took the shape of, for no other phoenix lived, nor had any other had her ancestry; she dove for the last grown dragon, an air elementalist.

Air evaporated water. Water drowned earth. Earth smothered fire. Fire consumed air.

And she was **the** fire master of all Japan; no matter there were others older than her.

She sped towards him and buried claws in the dragon's flesh and bit down hard.

The girl screamed. The boy verged on fainting, but remained conscious, even as he dropped to his knees and vomited.

Hizashi didn't care. Let Ryukotsusei use someone else as sacrifices. His nephews were no longer an option. For the vengeance of a taiyoukai was a terrible thing, and like the elephant, the phoenix never forgot. Especially the faces of those who had destroyed her family and her life.

She had no doubt that the young wolf likely fighting for her life would feel any different.

The dragon was dead, but the phoenix continued to viciously destroy its remains.

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

The drawing hadn't done the woman justice. She had the body of Angelina Jolie, and her face was so perfectly symmetrical it hurt. Violet eyes were lowered in a bedroom gaze that any who met it would be lost forever, and her raven hair curtained about her in bold corkscrew curls that actresses spent thousands trying to duplicate. And even though Kagome had no interest in women at all, she couldn't take her eyes off her. The woman exuded raw sex in a way that made Matsuro come across as a somewhat attractive child and hardcore pornography stars as ingénues.

Had Kagome managed to pull her eyes away, she would've noticed the growing blush as Inu-Yasha tried to tear his gaze away from her. Fukii was slightly too young for the woman's aura to pull her in the same manner, but was old enough to stare somewhat confusedly at her, wondering what the fuss was about.

Kagome never noticed the dark magic seeping up out of the ground, wrapping around her where she knelt at Fukii's side, binding her in much the same way the two kitsune were. Neither did Inu-Yasha nor Fukii. If there was one thing a kitsune could do well, it was to be the center of all attention- even attention that should have gone to keeping your mind and body safe.

Mischa's warnings about kitsune had gone unheeded.

The only one unaffected was Sesshoumaru. He ignored the lesser beings' predicament.

"This Sesshoumaru distinctly remembers killing you, genko."

Kagome could hear words buzzing in her ears- that someone was speaking- but the spell the vixen had woven about herself made it impossible for the younger three to pay attention to anything that wasn't her.

The vixen made a moue of disappointment. "That was not very nice of you, you know. Just because of a simple curse that killed any women you lay with after you so rudely booted me out of your bed-"

"Well over three hundred years ago," he interjected.

"Yes, well, we kitsune hold grudges against people who insult our bed skills." She tossed her curls contemptuously. "But you did kill me," her eyes twinkled maliciously. "Even if it did take you three hundred years to figure out who the perpetrator of the curse was," she said sotto voce.

His eyebrow rose questioningly.

"Lover," she drawled out, making the word seem a vicious insult, "I am sure you know how good I am with curses. And I am sure you know how dependent on his son and grandson Yoko is for a successor. No matter what either of the two does, he will not kill them. So I tied my life to my son's."

"A cruel thing to do to your own son," he stated. "Every time you die, he loses decades from his life."

"I never liked him much. Shippo was supposed to give me a genko son. Gold is recessive, he should have been black. But that damned Yoko-" she said bitterly.

"Yes, what did you do with him, vixen?" Sesshoumaru golden eyes gave away nothing of his thoughts.

"Wouldn't you like to know? We kitsune have many ways to make off with people," she retorted with a sultry look that was summarily ignored by the silver-haired taiyoukai.

"One wonders what might happen should your son die before you," Sesshoumaru said, his voice devoid of open threat.

Had Kagome actually been in a state of mind to think about it, her senses would have been going haywire about that statement.

As it was, her mind was completely occupied with fighting off the enchantment, and the voice was gone with an enraged dragon, or it would have otherwise pointed out that Sesshoumaru was far too smug looking.

**-----**

It is a well-known fact that perverts are used to getting beat up by their unwilling prey. Thus while injured to a potentially fatal extent, they will bounce back up minutes later, completely unharmed.

Sadly, this fact is completely false and based on believers reading far too much manga. Unfortunately for Matsuro.

However, he was youkai, and even if all his energy was being sucked into an endless whirlpool of silver, he had better things to do than to take this matter sitting down. Laying down, he corrected. Tied up. Which would be an interesting diversion, except he had enough experience in these matters to know that he was also unconscious, and that was annoying.

He wanted to wake up.

All those bound to Inari, bound in this spell of dark divine magic. He was not so stupid as to think it might be human magic- which no youkai could use- or youkai magic- which couldn't touch him in his current state of being a youki sink. Why would the gods be involved, though?

This question wasn't as important as freedom.

Yoko has disowned him, he forced himself to think. He owed nothing to the kitsune, and the kitsune was nothing to him.

Yoko wanted nothing to do with him. He hadn't spoken to the kitsune in a century, until these last few days. And then it was for Chame's sake, not Yoko's.

He didn't think about the fact that this century of exile had been Yoko's plan.

How could he be bound to Yoko if he was bound to the will of Kino Hachiro- or whoever was impersonating him.

Yoko was nothing to him.

And he was free.

And he was awake, if barely.

And shit did he hurt.

And hell if he didn't want to be unconscious again, because there was his mother, the center of attention as usual, and damn it, they said she was dead!

Maybe the problem lay in the fact that kitsune didn't like sharing the spotlight, even with other kitsune. And the matter of color. She put far too much import into the fact that she was a black kitsune and he was a gold kitsune. So what if the blacks had more ability? He wasn't one for magic- hell, he couldn't even control his fire any better than that wolf could control the earth.

Well, that did make him feel deficient, being on par with a hanyou.

And he really hurt. It wasn't even bleeding-to-death hurt, though that was happening too. It was getting-your-soul-sucked-out-through-your-ears hurt. He barely had the energy to open his eyes, and he didn't think he was even awake enough for a change in his breathing pattern to register on any of the other youkai's ears.

And his senses were so numb he wasn't sure he was registering any of them besides some minor sense of sight. Because pain wasn't always tied to the sense of touch, and he had his sense of touch honed to a fine degree. The pain wasn't registering as part of his sense of touch.

He really hurt.

And that meant it was all in his mind- which was not good, because that pain was worse, and even if people said otherwise, it was real, and dear gods, this pain was worse than when she had run him through with a naginata.

Though it came close.

So this is what it felt like to die.

Matsuro was disappointed he wouldn't be dragging the dragon kicking and screaming with him. And by the looks of it, the taiyoukai of the West would be taking care of his mother for him. Payback was a real bitch.

The pain was getting worse. Wasn't dying supposed to be painless?

No, wait, that was a human myth.

There was a slight thrum in the sink- and he realized what was going to happen with all the energy she was stealing through him and from him.

He was so sick of dealing with dragons, and death was perhaps the nicest thing she could offer him.

Sex would have been nicer though. And less painful.

He didn't want to die...

**-- Elsewhere --**

Mischa fell through the earth.

She had not given a destination- it had been pure panic and collapsing control of sanity that had led her to sink back and try to repeat what Yoshi had shown her.

Without Yoshi's mind to direct her, she was falling nowhere.

And then she slammed into rock. Staring into mirrored stone, silver eyes stared back out, three jagged red-black stripes adorning each cheek. The eyes held no spark of recognition, and though Mischa recognized similarities between her face and the reflection's, she didn't recognize the other either. The eyes flashed crimson- those were dragon eyes. And even as she verged on understanding something important, something that was everything, it slipped away.

And then she fell through the rock.

Mischa fell through air.

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

The vixen doubled over in pain, both hands coming up to her chest.

"Perhaps you should not have tied your life to someone so prone to getting into trouble," Sesshoumaru said.

"What have you done, Sesshoumaru?" she said, falling to her knees, breathing harshly.

"Nothing at all," he said, smirking down at her. "He can get into trouble without our help. I am sure you know how kitsune are- getting caught in matters that do not concern them. He simple bit off more than he could chew. I would imagine you are in a great deal of pain now, Ikiryoko."

There was a growl from her kneeling form, and a very faint one from the handsome redhead lying some distance away, and Sesshoumaru was surprised to note that the dark ropes of non-youkai magic that had been holding him down had disappeared.

He shot a glance between the two forms. Silver light not of kitsune origin traced between the two, quickly leeching away the power the black vixen had stolen from her father-in-law, then moved in on her magic as well. Where it was going after it transferred itself into the young youkai remained a mystery, though the fact that the North's hanyou was human was undoubtedly tied to it. Something was stealing as much youkai energy as possible.

It was worrying, especially since this had none of Ryukotsusei's taint to it. Something far older than the bound dragon was pulling the strings here, and they had all walked into its trap.

Were it not for the fact he was certain that Ryukotsusei was caught even deeper in the trap than he, Sesshoumaru would be more irritated about the matter.

The young kitsune seemed key to its ability to draw youkai magic. Unfortunately, it had drained too much from him and he had asked too much of himself in the fight. Matsuro had lost far too much energy, and only a human would be able to push energy into him to survive. Hanyou did not have the ability, and youkai energy would go straight through the exponentially expanding sink. And the miko, her focus for concentration gone, was no more helpful than a stick in a swordfight.

To put it simply, Matsuro had run out of the energy to live. And with his mother's curse on him, tying her to him and his energy sink to her, she was losing as well.

It was a rather anticlimactic way for the two of them to die. Sesshoumaru couldn't bring himself to care.

"What are you talking about?" she managed to grind out between pained shudders.

"He managed to find someone who knew how to make sinks. They took exception with him, nothing unusual for kitsune, and placed a sink on him. Something broke them off from finishing the job, thus prolonging his death. Had he not been forced to come here and fight, feeding off elemental energy and what little other energies he had managed to squirrel away from the sink, he might have lasted the week. Had you not tied yourself to him, he might have lasted the month. Though with this tie, he also brings you to your death. Magic bindings are never just one way, as well you should know, Ikiryoko."

By the time he had finished speaking, she had fallen still.

Silver light flared in his senses, and the younger three dropped to the ground, the vixen's magic no longer holding them. The light disappeared, and Sesshoumaru was not surprised to see that Matsuro's faint movements had ceased as well.

**-- Maebashi, Japan --**

A soft tickle of air against his cheek made Souta look upwards as he spat, trying to get rid of the sour aftertaste of vomit.

A dirty form, for lack of a better word, _melted_ out of the cliff face.

He reached clumsily forth with his element to break its fall.

He didn't entirely succeed- he hit the ground roughly- and Souta worried- but the moan of pain that came from his- no, her- mouth said she was still alive and mostly conscious.

Ayame was staring horrified at the flaming bird currently making sure her next oldest brother was dead.

His stomach rumbled unsettlingly at the thought and he quickly looked back at the woman the cliff face had given up.

She was too covered in dirt and blood for him to tell anything, but even with the red light cast from the strange bird, her dark hair was a mixture of black and blue. And since the skin was too dark for one, he knew her eyes would be brown.

"What is going on?" he moaned. "First that thing shows up" -the bird was attacking Jiro's corpse like it was a particularly appetizing lunch, and no, he wasn't going to throw up again- "and sets the entire place on fire- and those dragon guys are dead" -and he couldn't think about the charred corpses that were quickly becoming ash- "and now here's Mischa getting dropped out of a cliff that has a dragon entombed in it" -and thinking about that was okay because she was still breathing, and moving, and struggling to stand.

"You killed them," Ayame said angrily. "Just because-"

The bird looked up from its futile attempt to kill Jiro a second time and hopped up into the air. Its form shimmered as it flew towards the angry dragon girl, and by the time she reached the girl, the bird had become a beautiful four-winged woman in a clean light blue dress and almost-flaming hair.

"This one," she said in a soft voice that was anything but sweet, "did indeed kill those genocidal maniacs. And had this dragon known that it was they who caused the destruction of two Houses, one would kill her as well."

"They were my _family_!"

Souta wanted to comfort Ayame, but the fire woman scared the shit out of him- those dragons had radiated raw power, if beaten, and she had blown them away like they were bugs to be squished.

"And the dragon's family killed this one's," she said, cold voice at odds with the heat of the flames still surrounding her. "As well as those of the North. Turnabout is fair play, dragon child."

Souta wasn't sure how he came to her attention. But she turned and their eyes met. Brown met fiery orange nervously, and he had the distinct feeling of her looking through to his very soul, and he looked down, unable to bear the intent stare. Mischa twitched, and the fire-lit eyes followed his gaze.

"No," she said in a hoarse voice that was suddenly no longer angry or vengeful, but fearful.

She turned to Ayame. "This one understands better than any how filled with pain the water dragon must be."

"You-" Ayame started, eyes glistening suspiciously but still radiating raw hatred.

"Apologies, but it seems that this one must kill the young dragon after all."


	29. Twenty Eight: Puppet Strings

**Chapter Twenty-Eight: Puppet Strings**

_"Nothing is too high for the daring of mortals: we storm heaven itself in our folly."_

-Horace

**-- Afternoon, May 23, Maebashi, Japan--**

The phoenix's words were the only warning she gave, but Ayame hadn't needed them to know what the phoenix would do. Mist swirled about her, and her figure disappeared out of sight.

Souta backed up into the cliff face to give the calm fire woman space to move. He didn't want to be caught in the crossfire. Mischa lay a few feet in front of him, bleeding, and twitching at moments. Her eyes were half open, but she didn't look truly awake- or at least aware of her surroundings.

The woman spun quickly, fire racing as it followed her line of sight. Souta tried to find what she was chasing, and noticed a pattern of water droplets, glistening in the light of day and flames, racing in an expanding circle.

Ayame needed help, but he couldn't think of how. Mischa needed help too, and injuries were easier to face than a bird woman intent on killing someone, for reasons known only to her. He knelt and crept forward towards his cousin.

Her dark eyes were wide open now, and flickered right and left as she fought an internal battle for awareness. "Ne, Shan-chan," he whispered, lightly brushing away dirt from bloody cuts. "Did you know that fire and water destroy each other? Water puts out fire and turns it into earth, but the fire evaporates the water into air."

Mischa's eyes focused on him, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. "Souta," she said, then started coughing.

His words gave him an idea. Fire consumed air.

She sat up, and he noted that her gaze lingered briefly on something just over his left shoulder. They quickly swept upwards to take in the cliff they sat at the base of. He almost thought the pause had just been his imagination.

"Dragons. Always dragons with you. And now with Kagome as well," she said, not really talking to him.

"Mischa, it might be best to move," he said, noting the way the water droplets veered towards him.

Water became air. Air became fire. Fire became earth.

Ayame, water, thinking to hide behind Souta, air. Hizashi, fire, arriving. And earth Mischa to stop the conflict. This was not one of his friend's better plans. His idea was better.

Mischa turned her head and realized where she was and what was happening. "Hizashi-sama."

"Glad you know her. Make her stop trying to kill Ayame-chan, please?" he asked with a whine, the fire still chasing the water droplets. Mischa didn't look like she understood.

"Where are we?" Her eyes watched as the flames veered and circled around them, and Souta could feel the raw heat coming off of them, and they continued to chase down the water dragon.

"Somewhere near Maebashi, in the mountains. Though I kind of think the mountains grew up around him," Souta said. "Now could you stop the bird woman from killing Ayame-chan? She already took out the others."

She gave Souta a dry look. "Hizashi-sama is the taiyoukai of the East, a phoenix, and master of fire and earth. My arm is broken, I have enough wounds that, if left untreated, I will die, and I have drained what little power I have trying to keep from getting killed. What would you have me do? You have the better chance of stopping her." The dry look in her eyes said that the chance was still zero.

Fire consumed air.

Now the Ayame water droplets were coalescing as they sped through the air towards the phoenix woman. He could feel the pull of power as she cancelled the spell that had sent her element chasing after his friend and started working on a new one.

Fire fed off air.

The water had taken the form of a translucent winged dragon, wings folded back as she dove through the air as easily as any creature of flight did. Fire blazed around the phoenix, and he watched as the liquid form shrank from the heat radiating off her target.

Without air, there was no fire.

And Souta _pulled_, even as a new shape appeared in the sky, breaking both dragon and phoenix's concentration.

The flames went out, starved for fuel, and Hizashi stumbled backwards, not expecting the attack.

Black ropes snapped around her, and as she fell to the ground. The dragon shot over her, not expecting the move.

Then black ropes wound about him and Mischa, binding them back-to-back, and he could hear her say, "oh shit," before his head cracked into hers and all he saw was darkness.

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

Sesshoumaru took stock of the situation.

Three kitsune. Ikiryoko, dead, carcass quickly rotting as her many deaths caught up with her. Matsuro, dead, likely from blood loss- the boy hadn't adapted fast enough to his loss of the ability to quickly heal. Chame, bound and unconscious, energy levels slowly regaining themselves after she lost most of them to Matsuro before their arrival.

One missing kitsune. Yoko, whereabouts and status unknown. Though Sesshoumaru had a good idea where the ancient kitsune had disappeared off to. He would have to check with the man's intermediary with the human mages first.

One wolf. Fukii, slightly drained from tie to the youki sink by way of her minor enthrallment with Ikiryoko. Unconscious from the backlash of magic that had hit the area when Ikiryoko's fascination spell suddenly snapped off when she died.

Fascination spells were tricky things even under perfect conditions, and the youki sink had added variables no amount of forethought could predict. It was no wonder that her death had caused those enthralled to be knocked out; and the three were lucky that was all that had happened.

Inu-Yasha. Bloodied up from a serious beating by Ryukotsusei. His brother would never learn not to charge headfirst into these matters with nary a plan in mind. The unhinged jaw looked painful. Just as well the boy was unconscious.

And one human. Higurashi Kagome, one of five remaining descendants of Midoriko and of the famous Meirin bloodline. Though judging by the state of the wolf hanyou, that number would soon be four. The Shikon no Tama had been forcibly removed from her, and a great deal of drying blood stained her clothes. Her focus for holy magic seemed to have been taken as well.

Sesshoumaru wondered if she realized the amount of control and power she held over the item. There was a tie between it and her he could not understand, but he had used it to force things to this. Hizashi would no doubt be working on ruining the ceremony Ryukotsusei needed it for.

She would, of course, completely fail. But that was part of the plan as well.

He did not know who the other player in this game was, but Ryukotsusei would soon learn why to let sleeping dragons lie. Even if it was himself he was trying to rouse. _**Especially**_ when it was himself.

He was not the only dragon of his family bound to captivity.

The miko would be needed for this. Inu-Yasha could care for the children. Figuring out how to unbind the kit would distract him long enough to keep him from interfering.

He knelt by his brother's side and placed both hands firmly on the hanyou's jaw. Inu-Yasha opened bleary eyes at the contact, then screamed as Sesshoumaru snapped his jaw back into place.

"Be still, little brother, unless you wish this to reattach improperly." His voice left no room for argument. Inu-Yasha's golden eyes narrowed into a hard glare that impressed Sesshoumaru not at all. But Inu-Yasha remained still, and Sesshoumaru could feel his brother's demon blood surfacing with the touch, speeding the hanyou's recovery.

It occurred to Sesshoumaru that facilitating his brother's jaw's recovery would only hasten the arrival of Inu-Yasha's coarse remarks upon current events.

Not that anything he could say or do would change matters. Too many decades of planning had been put into this to be put aside for a hanyou squeamish about spilling certain humans' blood. Humans were far too short lived to spare any thought towards. The Meirin family more so than others. He had allowed the dragons that- it made it easier to keep track of Midoriko's descendants, with them never living past thirty.

His brother's constant worry about the humans was a sign of the weak emotions his human blood gave him. Were the Meirin family not so important, he would have ended the line the moment Inu-Yasha went from simply keeping an eye on them to actively destroying threats to the family. Obsession was foolish, and he had no doubt that given the chance and enough time, Inu-Yasha would marry into the family. It was a failing of his brother's, growing attached to such transitory creatures.

"You will remain here," he said, clawed hands still firmly clamping Inu-Yasha's jaw. "The miko and I will follow the dragon."

"Mrrf." Sesshoumaru needed no translator for that angry noise. He could see the hanyou tensing up to fight over who would chase the dragon and who would keep an eye on the bound kitsune.

"My way of travel is far faster than yours," he said coldly, ears catching the faint changes in the miko's breathing as she regained her senses from the backlash. Still as strong as ever, though she had immunity Fukii didn't- the sink had not tried to drain her of power. "You are to rouse the pup and try to find a way to unbind the kit. Be warned, though, that the dragon used divine magic, something to which you are not immune."

"Lah fuhk Ah ahm," Inu-Yasha said around the hands holding his mouth shut, tugging futilely to break his hold. "Leh ee uh."

The translation was simple enough. 'No, of course I will not acquiesce to the inevitable. Please release my jaw at once.'

"You will only get in the way, and someone must keep an eye on the children."

Inu-Yasha's lip curled, anger rising quickly. Sesshoumaru was not surprised his brother had not bought the evasion, but he was a card that would not work well with the hand he was currently working with and had to be discarded for the time being.

The miko had sat up and was watching their quiet conversation with curious eyes.

He did not have time to discuss the matter with Inu-Yasha, had he had the urge to do so in the first place. He gave orders, his brother followed them grudgingly. That was how it worked.

Sesshoumaru stepped away from his brother and pulled the young woman somewhat roughly to her feet.

"Come, miko. We do not have long. Inu-Yasha will watch the wolf and kit." He leveled a glare at his brother, daring him to continue to argue. Inu-Yasha spat blood out of his mouth and struggled to stand.

Kagome was staring between Ikiryoko and Matsuro. For a human, she was remarkably quick at understanding death. But then again, she was a priestess. Her eyes were dilating, and Sesshoumaru could predict to the millisecond how long it would take before she had a full-blown panic attack. Even one such as she needed time between stressful events to recuperate.

Inu-Yasha had succeeded in regaining his footing.

Kagome's mouth opened and she started breathing erratically.

Sesshoumaru's eyes flickered as he calculated metaphysical numbers.

Inu-Yasha leapt for his brother.

Both Sesshoumaru and the young woman well into a panic attack disappeared.

The silver-haired hanyou hit the ground roughly.

**--Maebashi, Japan --**

Mischa managed to stay conscious when Souta's head collided with the back of hers, but really, that was the only thing good about the entire situation. And it was a depressing sort of good- with the amount of pain she was in, she would have preferred unconsciousness, had she not spent far too much of the past few days in that state.

The water dragon coalesced into a solid humanoid girl.

"Father," she said nervously as the dragon landed, regaining humanoid form with touchdown. One hand held something clutched in a tight fist, while the other lay still at his side.

He gave a pointed look around. She knew what he would see- unconscious Souta, bound and gagged Hizashi, two piles of ash, one shredded dragon youkai, and Mischa, in all her dirty glory.

And, as always, there were dragons. One small, with chin-length sea green hair and wide crimson eyes, a shovel-headed tail moving in a slow, mindless fashion, dressed in somewhat charred denim pants and jacket, over a gray spaghetti tank that had seen better days. The other tall, with military-esque short gray hair- hadn't it been solely green in her first years in Tokyo?- and narrow, angry red eyes, all other draconic features well-hidden underneath a mixture of transformation and illusion and a soft black Armani suit.

Mischa wondered who the piles of ash were. Then realized that Ayame wasn't an only child. Or hadn't been one.

She didn't like the glare he was giving his daughter. It was far too calculating. And she didn't like the familiarity of the energy clutched in his hand.

"What is the meaning of this?" Kino asked, gaze never leaving his Ayame's face. Ayame's back was to her and she couldn't see girl's reaction beyond the stiffening of her back. His gaze met Mischa's, and she repressed a shiver at the dark look he gave her. His eyes flickered to Souta, then back to his daughter. "Never mind, this works just as well."

Hizashi made a muffled noise that sounded argumentative, but Mischa didn't see the point in trying. If they could bind Yoko, they could keep anyone captive.

"I believe I have you to thank for bringing the boy, and only their foolishness for trying elemental travel," he continued.

"What for?" Ayame asked. Mischa thought the girl was smarter than to ask questions she didn't know the answer to.

"All four elements," he said. "And the key." He tossed what he had been holding up experimentally, and it glittered a brilliant pink in the afternoon sun.

"The Shikon no Tama." It wasn't a question. Ayame was far too smart than was good for her. So was Souta. She could only hope they wouldn't end up dead because of it.

Hizashi struggled against her bonds. Mischa remained still- movement would slow down healing even further. And the pain in her right arm said it would be useless for a while.

The Shikon no Tama. Something had happened to Kagome after she left. Damn them, they were the ones who had put them in this situation; the least they could do was keep her cousin safe.

She struggled through the pain to think. Four elementalists- two youkai, two human, one for each main element- and the oddity that was the Shikon no Tama- holy energy and demon energy in one glowing ball. What would require that much power and variety?

"I don't understand," Ayame said, voicing Mischa's thoughts.

"Look at where we stand," he said in a pseudo-friendly manner. "The greatest seal ever to be made, strengthened over the centuries by all sorts of magicians and elementalists. What power would be needed to break it?"

The Shikon no Tama, one of the most ancient and powerful artifacts in existence, origin unknown. Four people, each with a different elemental ability. One, a dragon and powerful by heritage. Another, a taiyoukai and powerful by nature. And the other two, Meirin and descendants of an ancient magically inclined bloodline. She half expected Kagome to show up and bring the tranquil presence of a miko to complete the assortment of magics present. That wasn't what she needed to be thinking about. And key to it all- one dragon and his innate magical presence.

He hadn't known they would be here. But he had said this worked just as well. That meant-

Oh gods, he had planned on using his own children to free Ryukotsusei!

Ayame saw it as well, Mischa could see it in the way she trembled and took a step backwards, away from her father.

"Move another step, child, and I bind you like I did them. I have waited far too long to be thwarted by children."

Mischa watched as Ayame stood straight up and took a step forward, intent on giving her father a piece of her mind. What a terrible time to grow a spine, she thought cynically. "You're going to sacrifice me to resurrect a patricidal-"

He slashed his arm through the air, running right to left, and Ayame fell backwards, ropes binding her legs together and arms behind her back. Struggling, she sat up, and even though Mischa could tell the girl was glaring, Ayame said nothing. Wise decision.

"I do not give second warnings," he said coldly.

He lifted Ayame up effortlessly and set her down by the gagged Hizashi so that the two were seated back-to-back, much like Souta and herself. Though she and Souta were actually tied together...

He started murmuring faintly, far too quietly for human ears to make sense of. And when she could make out words, they were in a tongue completely unfamiliar to her.

Hizashi looked scared though. Very scared.

**-- Tokyo, Japan --**

Sesshoumaru and Kagome arrived in a small apartment filled with homey knick-knacks, photographs, and furniture, yet with a somber undertone of solitude.

Kagome bent to dry heave. They were dead. There were hundreds of dead. Not even dead long enough for ghosts to have completely formed, and she had already seen them- the playful-eyed monk and someone new, an angry bird-woman. Not even ghosts- memories of those souls.

She couldn't breathe. Images were flashing across her mind so quickly she couldn't even begin to make sense of them all. Dropping into a bright tunnel, climbing vines out of a pit, notching an arrow at a crow oni, a tentacled monster attacking. Dozens of images. Brought on by other souls' memories.

They weren't even memories. There was a bicycle right next to the man dressed in the armor of earlier days. They were delusions, hallucinations, caused by a lack of focus- or maybe control.

Sesshoumaru's cool voice cut through her mind's incoherent ramblings and she clung to it as a life raft. "Inhale deeply, miko. You are in Tokyo, in an overly furnished apartment for just one man, and such nonsense as your ridiculous mortal actions will not be tolerated."

Inhale. She was alive. Exhale. She was safe. Inhale. The walls were a bland blue-tinted white, offset by oak furniture. Exhale. There walls were covered with various types of artwork, with no discernable pattern, that blended together in a startlingly display of the beauty of chaos theory. Inhale. Plants were spread about the room, on shelves and blooming, in large pots on the ground and growing to the ceiling, and one wall even had an ivy latticework that moved too much to be wallpaper. Exhale. They were pretty. Inhale. Chaotic, but fitting together beautifully. It felt like someone's home, their place of refuge. She was safe. Exhale softly.

"Thank you," she said quietly as she straightened up, shivering.

"It will likely happen again," Sesshoumaru said pessimistically. He frowned, looking around the public room. "Yet more plants. Besotted fool. Air elementalists, not a one of them have anything resembling a mind."

She wanted to ask where she was, and whose apartment this was, and what he meant by besotted, and who was the air elementalist. She settled for an eloquent, "Huh?"

Thankfully, Sesshoumaru had a great deal of experience dealing with his brother. "You are in the apartment of one Yukino Kiyoshi, air master and current liaison of youkai-human relations. We are here to enquire as to whether he knows of Yoko's whereabouts or not."

"Yukino... Kiyoshi?" she repeated. "Souta's teacher? The soccer player?"

"And air master," he agreed. "I was under the impression that Kiyoshi did not allow his students to speak of him."

"He teaches high school history. Uh-" Kagome caught on. "Wait, he's the one who's been teaching Souta magic? And-"

He frowned. "This Sesshoumaru does not relay secondhand information. Interrogate your brother at some later time. This is not the time for it."

A teakettle whistled.

Sesshoumaru stalked toward the room it was coming from, Kagome trailing confusedly behind, still dazed from the day's previous events.

They entered a tiny kitchen, unoccupied by anything living, save a bamboo plant beside the refrigerator. Kagome took the kettle off the stove and the whistling stopped. Sesshoumaru stared intently at the plant, and Kagome realized the leaves were moving ever so slightly, even in the dead stillness of the room.

Sesshoumaru spoke an inhuman word, and the moving stopped. A tiny creature of silver and blue twisted into shape, standing beside the pot. Still as it was, everything about it said 'movement;' from the swirl of colors across its skin, to the way its large eyes flickered warily between Sesshoumaru and herself, to the way the sheet-like substance it wore swayed gently around it.

"Where is he?" There was a firm undertone in his voice that Kagome recognized from her aunt- one that demanded respect and a fast answer.

The little creature whirled into nothingness, and a silvery outline of a building collapsing in on itself appeared where it had been.

"Where is he?" Sesshoumaru repeated, and Kagome could hear the threat in his voice.

The little creature reappeared and pointed an accusing finger at Sesshoumaru, and opened its mouth to berate the youkai in a howl of winds Kagome didn't understand.

Kagome noticed the glass in the window over the sink had shattered. And when she actually looked through the window...

"Oh my god."

Every building within view had started to crumble, as if all their foundations had decided to weaken simultaneously. Windows were blown out, entire sections of walls caved in, revealing buildings' interiors.

Kagome couldn't understand what had happened, or what could have caused such massive destruction.

"Be that as it may," Sesshoumaru said, obviously understanding the creature's cacophony of noises and ignoring the young human, "you will tell me where he is or I will cease your useless existence."

The creature made a raspberry noise and disappeared with a pop.

"Sir?" Kagome said, not sure how to address the youkai. "Have you seen-"

"Tokyo is Yoko's jurisdiction," he interrupted.

"Yeah, but Ryukotsusei was supposed to be yours," said a weak voice from the doorway into the room.

Kagome turned from the window.

Yoshi looked like hell warmed over. His skin was an unhealthy shade of pale- almost gray. Dark rings around his bloodshot eyes made it look like he hadn't slept in days. And the way he clung to the doorframe said he didn't have the strength to hold himself up.

Sesshoumaru frowned at his appearance. "What happened to you?" He asked.

"Someone riled a dragon. Youkai and human magicians throughout the city have been working to make sure it doesn't completely collapse in on itself. And may I repeat Yoko's warnings about letting sleeping dragons like?" He noticed Kagome. "Kagome-san. Horrid as these circumstances are, it's wonderful to see you are... in passing good health. I trust your family is safe." The last seemed more of a question than it sounded.

"Parrot him all you like-"

"You have no idea who you're dealing with. You really think you can control events, when something like this," Yoshi pointed towards the broken window, "happens? You're supposed to be guards, damn you, and you can't even keep him from making Hiroshima look a kid playing in the sand box! Yoko was right to leave you to your mess. You've already gotten Tsukikage killed, and no doubt Hizashi will follow, because you think you can control everything-" Yoshi stopped, shuddering, collapsing almost entirely onto the doorframe. "You're going to get us all killed," he whispered, "solely for revenge for your father."

Sesshoumaru's gaze turned icy, and Kagome knew that whatever history he spoke of, it was best left untold. "Watch your words, air master. Just because Yoko favors you-"

"My aunt is in America," Yoshi said inanely. "Now please leave."

Sesshoumaru gave him a stiff nod and disappeared from sight.

Kagome stared blankly at the brunet.

"No questions, please," he asked. "Just help me to the couch."

Kagome jumped towards him as he started to slide down the frame.

"Depletion of energy reserves," he murmured to her as she got an arm around his waist and his arm around her shoulder. "Won't let him kill everyone."

"Who?" She asked, slowly making her way back to the center room she had appeared in. A small breeze ruffled around her, helping to buoy his heavy weight, and Kagome was certain it was the same creature from the kitchen.

"Sesshoumaru. Ryukotsusei. It doesn't matter," he said hoarsely. "Neither of them understands what they're dealing with. "

Kagome didn't want him drifting off, not before she could take stock of his injuries. Her magic might be denied her, but she still had her studies to draw upon. Years of volunteering in hospitals, and lessons from classes- though solely theoretical. "And what would that be?"

Almost to the couch. "Gods," he said, as if that would explain it all.

Kagome thought it did- Kino had called Yoko Inari. Why not have other gods appear in the strange, horrifying events that were rapidly taking place?

"Why?" They made the last step to the couch, and Kagome helped him to slowly sit down.

He leaned his head back, eyes closed, the pale pink scar running down his face standing out against the clammy gray the rest of him was. "Hell if I know."


	30. Twenty Nine: Draconic Upheaval

**Chapter Twenty-Nine: Draconic Upheaval**

"_Fiat justitia et pereat mundus."_

- Ferdinand I

Let justice be done, though the world perish.

Almost one thousand years ago, the Inu no Taishou sealed away a great dragon. His crimes? Treason. Assassination of a holy emperor. Patricide. Genocide. One hundred years ago, an untrained monk released a hanyou from a tree and accidentally released a portion of the great dragon's mind into the unsuspecting world. In the decades between then and now, the taiyoukai have played a great game of cat and mouse, trying to trick the dragon into admitting his presence and submitting to them and returning to his captivity. But another party has spent over a millennium working towards a far different result. Finding someone with power enough to destroy divine magic. Their pawns are the same- members of an ancient bloodline descended from gods long turned to dust, names barely remembered in the Shinto registry. These two paths are about to crash headlong into each other, and the results will be nothing like anyone imagined. And it will take more than just luck for any of them to get out alive.

**-- Late Afternoon, May 23, Maebashi, Japan --**

The dragon in the cliff face was writhing continuously, the fang buried into the cliff face slowly shaking loose. Below it, a tall, aged youkai stood, arms upraised to the sky. On each side, a pair of bound people, two humans to his left, two youkai to his right. Pale blue and dark amber magic on one side, sea green and brilliant red to the other. In the center, in one upraised fist, a pink light lit up the entire glen. And deep within the stone cliff, a great mixture of magic that overshadowed those gathered below, coalescing into a pure white color with each word that fell from the dragon youkai's mouth.

Rituals had long ago fallen out of common use. Powerful as they were, they also required a great deal of power and concentration to complete, and mistakes were often fatal. Only the most experienced of practitioners used them, and only if they had a good enough cause. Using a ritual without ever having cast it before- without anyone having ever cast it- was tantamount to suicide.

Ryukotsusei was neither foolish nor self-destructive. Just very confident in his powers. And because he was certain of success and his concentration was focused solely on the upkeep of the ritual spell and the bindings on his sacrifices, he did not notice when it began to go awry.

**-- Las Vegas, Nevada, United States ---**

Even in the crowds of Sin City, people made way for certain individuals. A deep, instinctive recognition of power, title, and youki. Sesshoumaru easily made his way to the one of the many poker tables in the casino at Caesar's Palace. It had a 'Professionals Only' sign hanging above it, warning off newcomers and amateurs of the game.

Five players and a dealer sat there, surrounded by a large crowd attracted to the higher-than-usual stakes two of the players were using, and the way they kept winning at it too. They sat at opposite sides of the table, but they had played at that dealer's table often and she knew them to be family. The attractive brunette was in her early twenties, and the dealer had heard her call the man across the table 'father' often enough. The redheaded man was aging impossibly well, looking in his mid-thirties. The brunette's game was not as self-assured as her father's, but he was her only real opponent in the current seating.

She watched out of the corner of her eye as a tall, silver-haired man in a neat business suit made his way directly towards the redhead.

The redhead was looking up before the other gentleman had finished his walk. He folded- to his daughter's irritation and the other players' relief- and stood, another playing taking his seat. The redhead moved away from the table to talk with the newcomer and the dealer returned her attention to the betting.

"Shippo," Sesshoumaru said in greeting. "You are looking remarkably well for being dead."

"I'm like a bad penny," the redhead grinned. "I keep showing up."

"Not in Japan, however."

"Yoko made the two of us leave," he said in explanation.

Sesshoumaru eyed the brunette, her long hair worn loose in subtle waves, as if they were normally in a braid. "I remember seeing your daughter in Niigata earlier."

"We've been here all week."

"Which makes this Sesshoumaru wonder what Yoko is up to. Ikiryoko taking his appearance, and him taking the kit's."

"My father has never been one for explanations. No doubt you know more of his plans than me."

"My apologies for interrupting your game."

"There's always another one."

At the table, the brunette succeeded in making the last of her opponents go all in, and moments later, left them pale-faced as she revealed a royal flush in spades.

She said to the dealer as she stood, gathering her winnings into a pretty gift bag, "It's no fun playing without my father. There's no challenge without having a player better than you. But it's also no fun when the player is just too far ahead of you."

"Their pockets are certainly a great deal lighter," the dealer agreed. "Perhaps they'll remember they were pretentious little snots when they first started card counting as well."

"Everyone needs a lesson in humility. But I'm not counting cards. I'm just the handmaiden of luck," the brunette grinned.

**-- Tokyo, Japan --**

Yoshi lay on the couch, watching through half-lidded eyes as Kagome took stock of his small apartment.

Finally she spoke. "Why isn't your apartment in shambles like the other buildings? What does your aunt have to do with anything? What do the gods have to do with what's going on? How are they going to get everyone killed? And why do you have so many plants?"

"I have so many plants because I've been training an earth elementalist. Her magic was practically wild, so lessons in control were key. Plants hold energy well, and they don't hurt anyone if they accidentally blow up. The lattice could, I suppose, be considered her thesis paper. This building was reinforced magically. My aunt is a lovely girl. Unstable, though. On good relations with Yoko-sama." He closed his eyes.

"As for what's going on, the simple explanation is Ryukotsusei killed the previous lord of the West. He's also killed the a great deal of other people, human, youkai, and god alike. He has the irritating habit of bringing himself back from the dead, so the taiyoukai decided to just seal him away alive. As he's escaped, the taiyoukai are trying to reel him in to be captured again."

Kagome took a seat on the floor in front of him. "And Tokyo?"

"A casualty in their war. The youkai lords were overconfident, and thus, they will get us all killed. Ryukotsusei is overconfident, and will get us all killed, as well as himself," Yoshi explained.

"How do you know all this?"

"As Sesshoumaru said, Yoko favors me."

"You mean Inari," she corrected.

His eyes snapped open to look at her. "How'd you- never mind. Yes. As I was saying. Yoko told me a great deal, and the rest of it is from eavesdropping and divination. No one notices the humans. Might I ask a question of you?"

Kagome shrugged. "I probably don't know the answer."

He smiled half-heartedly. "I'd be worried if you didn't, actually. What happened to the Shikon no Tama? Your aura is completely out of control."

"You can sense- It was-" she paused, rubbing one hand on her side over her scar, no longer covered since she had torn half her shirt off earlier. "Ryukotsusei took it."

Yoshi's eyes closed again and he leaned his head backwards. Sighing, he said, "It was to be expected. It also explains why you haven't asked-" he stopped himself. "Dependency is a poor thing, especially in your case. While waiting, why don't you try focusing on the plants?"

She scrunched her nose up, confused.

"Plants don't have memories or thoughts, thus there is no loss of self," he explained. "You need to regain your control of your powers before Ryukotsusei realizes he needs you for his ridiculous ceremony, not just the Shikon no Tama."

"What do you mean by that?"

There was no answer. Kagome looked closely. His skin was still far too pale, but the slow rise and fall of Yoshi's chest reassured her he had only fallen asleep. She stood silently.

At heart, he was a teacher, she knew. And he had been trying to tell her something more than just what was going on with dragons. But it wasn't as important as finding the dragon and stopping him from freeing himself. If he had the power to level Tokyo now, there was no telling what he could- and would- do once he reunited with his freed body.

Kagome walked to a part of the latticework and placed her hand above it, barely touching it. She closed her eyes, trying to see how Yoshi's former student had created the masterpiece.

She imagined the soil, placed in a shallow shelf that replaced the bottom molding of the room. Seeds scattered through it, tiny lights of green and life, full of potential. Wooden lattice nailed into the walls. She could feel someone beside her, concentration so focused their world was narrowed to nothing but soil and frames and floral life. Even more faintly, she could feel her aunt- a combination of fading memory of a teacher and sharp memories of her divination abilities. Slowly, so slowly, she could see tiny vines creeping out of the soil, growing towards the framework.

Kagome could feel herself putting down shallow roots into the soft wood, anchoring her, but letting her move forward. A helping hand, a ladder to higher places. Vines intersected, and she knew what each one knew, where they were, where they had been, where they wanted to go. She faintly felt the concentration beside her snap- the leftover trace of a memory of a student who tried so hard and could not achieve her needs. But Kagome was past her. She was a tiny leaf in a giant lattice, a part of a whole that grew increasingly, spreading out over the room, over the walls, over the city.

She could feel others, creatures unknowingly helping in the growth of the latticework, trapped by their pain, unable to move onwards, but still able to tell you what paths to avoid, if only you listened. And she was Japan, she was Asia, she was not a spirit of the earth, but the Earth herself, a giant lattice of lives, reaching towards each other, staying or continuing on, touching lives and being touched in return.

It was beautiful.

And then she was back inside herself, just Higurashi Kagome, miko priestess, pre-med student, waitress. But there was an awareness there- a sense of the larger picture- that she had not had.

Yoshi knew it. Sesshoumaru was looking for it. And someone else- maybe _something_ else- was guiding it.

She knew where she was going. Where it all began. Where it all ended. The Shikon no Tama was not just a jewel of power hidden away inside of her. It was alive. Aware. And it called to her like a siren to a sailor, still a part of her, but not actually herself. Where the jewel was, were the endgames.

And she, merely a pawn trying to make it across the board, to stay alive until the opposing king was deposed, saw every move needed to reach the end- if not safely, then with her life intact.

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

Fukii woke to loud swearing. They stopped suddenly as Inu-Yasha noticed her.

"He fucking left me with you two babies to go have revenge. Like I know how to deal with magic."

"We're not babies," Fukii said, voice barely rasping, as she sat up. "I'm not that much younger than you, and there's something old about the kit."

He ran his hand back through his hair. "Well there's going to be something dead about her if we can't get those bindings off of her. Sesshoumaru should be dealing with this, not me. That asshole's the one who got this whole thing started anyway."

Fukii looked at the bound kitsune. Chame was still unconscious, most of her covered with dark strands of black ropes that glowed faintly. Her features looked paler- as if the spell was sucking the color out of her.

"Yoko wasn't really Yoko," she said, thinking out loud. "And so the vixen was able to throw off the binding spell."

"And the fox was able to throw it off because his divided loyalties," Inu-Yasha continued. "But that doesn't mean shit for unwrapping the genko."

"No, no," Fukii said, thinking quickly. "That will work. All kitsune have divided loyalties. Friend one minute, enemy the next, bed partner sometimes. They always have little back-up plans. But would one as young as Chame have a slippery enough mind to convince the spell she isn't a loyal follower of Inari?"

"Seems to me that she's the one who needs to get the magic off of her, not us helping her." Inu-Yasha prodded the kit, black ropes twining about his finger, and then slipping off. He tried picking up a piece, but his fingers wouldn't hold.

Fukii copied his movements, noting the strands weren't as quick to move away from her as they had been for the hanyou. "We can't just leave her like this, though."

"Well unless you were blessed with knowledge along with the responsibility of controlling the Northern territories, neither of us knows jack shit about dealing with divine magic."

"What I don't understand is how he could use divine magic. And he targeted the fake Yoko- she wasn't Inari, so the spell shouldn't have worked. Not unless-" Fukii paused, frowning at the kit.

"Not unless Inari was actually present," he finished, following her train of thought. "That's how it goes, right? But wouldn't that mean-" He stopped, catching on to what the wolf pup suspected.

They stared, neither of them wanting to voice it. One didn't simply just bind millennia-old gods by wishing it so. And it seemed even the taiyoukai had vastly underestimated the amount of power the dragon had gained.

"It still doesn't explain how he could use divine magic," Fukii said softly, as if their new knowledge would wake the kitsune if they spoke too loud. "Only the gods can use it- all magic is based upon the user. Youkai can't use human magic, humans can't use youkai magic."

"And only gods and miko can use divine magic," Inu-Yasha interrupted. "Except that doesn't explain me seeing the kit using youkai magic, and the dragon has been too."

"I didn't even think the gods really existed anymore," Fukii said. "It's been centuries since they were seen."

He snorted. "It's not like they can die. Maybe they're all like him now," he said, eyes flicking to the kit. "Disguised as youkai."

"But Ryukotsusei isn't a god. He's just a dragon youkai," Fukii argued.

Inu-Yasha stared ground, eyebrows furrowed in concentration. "Not completely. Sesshoumaru once told me that all dragons are descended from the Dragon Emperor."

Fukii shook her head. "Not enough so to actually be able to use divine magic."

"Oi, I wasn't done," he said, looking up to frown at her. "The old stories say the Emperor had two sons."

"And lo, the elder son did lay low Ryujin, Dragon Emperor, and the Heavens did know war. For the Four Guardian Beasts did take offense with the elder, and did battle for control. And in the end, the Beasts did triumph and both sons fled east to the lands of the barbarians. Then were the Heavens closed in mourning for the Emperor, and the gods and the creatures of the Heavens did walk the mortal plane," Fukii recited. "I already know the stories," she huffed.

"Yeah, but did you know the sons are still alive?" he asked smugly.

"Impossible. Your own father hadn't even been born when all that went on, and it's not like he wasn't ancient when he died," Fukii argued; mind already calculating dates and piecing together clues.

He looked irritated. "And do you really think it could be anybody but someone descended from a god who could have killed him?"

Ryukotsusei killed the Inu no Taishou. He had been cursed to slumber- an entire mountain range growing up around him. The taiyoukai and other powerful people made frequent trips to reinforce his seals. The only reason they would do that was if they were really worried- maybe even feared- that he could wake up. But if you followed Inu-Yasha's suspicions, it became obvious why they didn't simply kill Ryukotsusei. One didn't just kill the son of the Dragon Emperor- even if he had killed the Emperor. Death freed the soul for possible reincarnation, and the powers of one life often followed into your next. The punishment had to be sterner- had to last forever.

Awareness and power, but the complete inability to do anything but watch as youkai, and then humans, take over the world he had once thought to become Emperor of. He had to have burned with hatred.

Something had gone wrong though, and he was partially free and now apparently had the means to completely free himself.

"We're so fucked," she stated, staring wide-eyed at the hanyou.

**-- Maebashi, Japan --**

Mischa watched from her uncomfortable vantage point as huge cracks went tearing down the cliff face. The dragon embedded in the stone was shuddering- either in pain or to shake off the rocks.

Gods, she hurt. And she was going blind from all the power smashing about the place. She didn't think this was what the dragon had expected to happen.

Green mist suddenly rose from the ground, and a tall silver-haired youkai popped into view.

The mountain finished giving way and rocks went flying everywhere.

Sesshoumaru drew his sword and charged towards the chanting dragon youkai.

The dragon in the cliff face gave one final shudder, and the great dragon soared free from its imprisonment, eyes red with rage.

Kino's head severed from its body, and both parts dropped to the ground, silent under the din of the rocks crashing around them.

The inu taiyoukai landed gracefully opposite where he had started his attack on the dragon. Then, realizing he hadn't been in time, went racing after the dragon flying north.

Mischa wondered where all the energy still bounding around the clearing was supposed to go. She started struggling, furiously, pain shooting through her broken arm. She had to get Souta and herself out of here before that magic hit them.

Fifteen feet across from her, the bound phoenix burned through the black strands of magic tying her, and watched as all the magic in the clearing swirled into one huge beam and headed straight for the tied girl. Her scream tore through the air, and the firebird blinked out of the clearing before the explosion she knew would happen.

**-- Tokyo, Japan --**

Kagome reached a hand out to the sleeping brunet and concentrated, focusing on the oneness she had felt. Soft magenta light surrounded him, and the gray pallor to his skin disappeared. Kagome smiled brilliantly as he opened his eyes, startled.

"You ready to go?" she asked.

Yoshi blinked at her, confused.

"I know what's going to happen," she explained. "And Sesshoumaru-sama said you're an air master. I figure you've got a faster means of transportation than just a car. We need to get to Ryukotsusei's resting place."

He slowly sat up.

"Now," she stressed. "Or bad things will happen."

"It's not that simple. I'm completely drained, no matter that you just gave me a little pick-me-up," he said. "Nice job on that. Should have realized you'd be as quick to learn as the other two," he added vaguely.

"Miko magic is compatible with human elemental magic. I recognize the power in the plants here- it's the same as when Mischa showed up in Niigata. Which means you can manipulate others' magic. Use mine to get us there," Kagome ordered.

"Kagome-san," he said with a sigh, not bothering to ask how the miko had so quickly grasped whose plants were here, "it's not that simple. Meirin-san is an elementalist. I am an elementalist. You use holy magic. They're not interchangeable."

"But they're close enough you can force it. Please, Yoshi-san," she said pleadingly. "We don't have any time."

"Don't say I didn't warn you," he muttered. "Give me your hands."

She placed her hands in his upturned ones. "Air elementalists," he said, "are the closest things to telepaths an elementalist can be. Never try this again, Kagome-san. You must open your mind completely for me to be able to manipulate your magic and not every elementalist out there is a nice guy like me."

Kagome opened her mouth to ask how he'd manage to get Mischa to go along with this.

"Silence, please." There was a strange flickering inside her head, and whatever he had metaphorically bumped into had triggered one of the others' memories inside of her.

_(A redhead sitting across from her, leaning backwards with his arms crossed, emerald eyes staring seriously at her._

"_You went into a rage. I've been expecting it for a few years now and had planned for it. That pain you're feeling is the seal I placed on you. I don't feel like having to run around after you to clean up your messes like Sesshoumaru does with his hanyou. So I made sure it represses all youki, not just set a limit to the youki entering you. I'd wondered after the phoenix went youkai if you could make a hanyou human. You've probably still got youkai longevity. I'd suggest leaving the country for a while. I don't want your father finding out about you. Maybe China. There's a nice monastery there that trains magicians."_

"_Yoko-sama," a familiar voice said in a pained tone, "I'm an agnostic."_

"_Not my problem. Come back when you're useful.")_

"You're hanyou," Kagome said, then shuddered as her power triggered. Magenta light burst in the apartment, and the two faded slowly from the room.

**-- Niigata, Japan --**

"There's a huge amount of youki coming this way," Fukii said, staring south.

"Dammit, Sesshoumaru," Inu-Yasha swore.

"We're fucked," she repeated.

Inu-Yasha drew his sword. "But we ain't gonna lie down and take it," he barked at her.

"Easy enough for you to say," she said, hopping up and cracking her knuckles. "You've got your inheritance to aid you. I've got my fists."

"Quit your whining," he said, ears twitching like mad as he listened to the roaring sound coming closer. "You've got all that taiyoukai power in you. Try and tap into that."

A white streak could be seen in the distance, rushing towards them.

"I wonder why it's coming this way," Fukii said softly.

Both hanyou and wolf noticed the pale blur chasing after it. Neither voiced the thought that it wasn't because Sesshoumaru was following it.

The mad eyes of the dragon locked onto the two ground-bound demons and dove towards them.

So she was the taiyoukai of the North now, was she? And she stood in its seat of power; barren though it may be of life, the miko had purified the soil and souls here. She glared skyward. "Stop." She poured all her need for vengeance into that single word. All the power she could feel swirling inside of her, trying to settle into its new owner. The dragon froze momentarily, assailed by an unexpected foe.

"Kaze no kizu," Inu-Yasha shouted, swinging the Testsusaiga towards the two oncoming youkai. Behind the dragon, Sesshoumaru swung an acid green whip. The dragon roared in outrage as the two attacks slammed into it, tearing down its entire length. The dragon dissolved.

"What the fuck?" Inu-Yasha said, torn between relief and confusion that the dragon hadn't been difficult to kill.

Fukii looked around. "That was it?" She asked, frowning. "Where did all that youki go?"

Sesshoumaru frowned. That was the question, wasn't it? The wolf-girl hadn't enough power to stop the true Ryukotsusei, which meant this had been a decoy. What had he missed?


	31. Thirty: Clarity

AN: I'm trying to wrap this up, if only to finally get it out of my system. Kagome and the OW gang have dwelled in my head so long I'm afraid they might take up permanent residence if I take any longer to finish. (Let's not even talk about how many times I've doodled and drabbled them doing things that aren't even part of the story. How can you even have fanfiction of fanfiction? (But wow, do I want to write Yoshi's back-story so much.))

**Chapter Thirty: Clarity**

_"We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present."_  
- Anais Nin

**-- Translocation --**

_:: It never ceases to amaze. ::_ She heard as pain rushed through her, magenta-streaked pink surrounding her. The pain died down as the presence made itself known. _:: The arrogance, the heroics, the martyr-syndrome, the disaster-prone. How you scions ever lived long enough to breed continues to remain a mystery.::_

"I thought you were gone," Kagome said.

_:: We have a little time, thanks to the taiyoukai. Not nearly enough. And now, let us set aside our standard games and do something else entirely. Ask your questions, little miko, and I will answer as best I can. ::_

"What's the catch?"

_:: Merely your word that you do not wish upon the Shikon no Tama after you retrieve it. ::_

"Easy enough," she said. "But the legend says that if you simply make a pure wish on it, it will be destroyed. Why are you telling me not to make a wish?"

_:: It's not that simple. You see, miko, the simple act of making a wish is impure. Thus the fact that the Shikon no Tama continues to exist to today, even though countless miko have guarded it and tried to make pure wishes upon it to cease its existence. ::_

"Then what I am supposed to do with it?"

_:: Why do you think Chame asked if you were really a guardian? You are supposed to **guard** it. ::_

"Is there some sort of time limit on this? Or can I expect things like this to keep happening now that its existence is out?"

_:: Your death ends your guardianship. Nothing else. ::_

"Great, a curse. I should have guessed."

_:: Burden though the jewel may be, it is not cursed. Not for its Guardian, anyway. Anyone else who tried to use it would have their wish backfire on them. Which has, unfortunately, happened before. Take your hanyou for example. ::_

"But Mischa didn't know about the jewel. She just knows she's my protector."

_:: You don't know just one hanyou, miko. I speak of the inu. ::_

"He didn't mention that part of his story," she said.

_:: He knew one of the previous guardians. The one who finally managed to destroy the jewel's physical body. I have not decided whether that was a good or bad thing. ::_

"The miko from the story. But if she destroyed it, why did I have it?"

The being chuckled in dark amusement. _:: Ah, little miko, your naiveté never ceases to amuse me. ::_

"It's a valid question."

_:: But I have no answer to give you. ::_

"You don't know or I'm not allowed to know?"

_:: You are moving into waters too deep for you to swim, miko. Ask another. ::_

"Why me?"

_:: The Meirin family is descended from the creator of the Shikon no Tama. It goes to the firstborn of each generation once the previous Guardian dies. ::_

"But Mischa is older than me."

_:: She is also part demon. She cannot have magic, and thus cannot be a true Guardian. Which is why she serves as your protector. A less noble job, to be sure, but exciting all the same. ::_

"So only a human of my bloodline can carry it?"

_:: Yes. Your family has the happy misfortune of being unable to rid itself of human magic. You, for example, are a miko. Your aunt is also one, not to mention having the gift of foresight. Your brother, though he has little training, is an elementalist. Had the wolf's father been human, she would likely have some ridiculous magic to play with as well. ::_

"And my mother?"

_:: Is a perfectly normal human with an overdeveloped sense of empathy, of course. I would have thought you would have picked up on that by now. You have a similar gift yourself. However, we are out of time. Remember, Kagome. No wishes. No matter what may happen. ::_

The pain that had faded while they spoke returned full-force, and Kagome materialized back into the real world screaming, Yoshi slumped unconscious in her arms.

**-- Evening, May 23, Niigata, Japan --**

"That would be my fault," a masculine voice said from behind them.

The three whirled to see a nine-tailed kitsune standing where Chame had been laying. Sesshoumaru nodded his head. "Yoko-sama," the taiyoukai said. "This Sesshoumaru had wondered how long you were planning on playing dead."

Fukii glanced over to where a dark-haired kitsune lay dead. How long had the two been playing their alternate roles? And how would the genko have been able to impersonate someone so powerful as Yoko without the other taiyoukai noticing? Unless they had been in on it as well. Fukii raised a clawed hand to rub her forehead. Conspiracies within conspiracies, seeing plots and spies everywhere. It was enough to drive one to paranoia and madness.

"It was a trifle more difficult to remove the bonds than I had expected," the redhead explained. "It's been quite some time since someone fooled around with divine magic."

"That has been taken care of," Sesshoumaru said.

"Kinda doubt that," Inu-Yasha disagreed, nodding his head back towards where the dragon had dissolved. "That ain't normal. Not to mention the kid using a power word on him and it working."

Yoko smirked. "My fault," he repeated. "Working through her was easier than doing it myself- she hasn't come into contact with the wolf hanyou recently. I have."

"Where's all that fucking energy going, then? I thought the dragon was bleeding it off of her, with that stupid ceremony you lords were fussing over."

A small frown creased Sesshoumaru's face. He had not stopped the ceremony in quite enough time- the dragon had freed Ryukotsusei from the mountains that had entombed him, but there had been no time to transfer his mind and all the energy of the seals to his original form. Ryukotsusei's mind had died with his brother's body.

"I think," Yoko said, tipping his head backwards to gaze at the sky, "that it was the other way around."

"What are you talking about?" Fukii asked, confused.

"You are aware the wolf hanyou went rogue for a time?" Yoko asked the wolf-girl. She nodded, though Sesshoumaru arched an eyebrow in surprise. "In that form, it appears she has the ability to create youki sinks. And I sensed nothing of that when she appeared here in human form. She should have been brimful of youki, even with the sealing spell the miko had placed on her."

"The dragon had been using her in his ceremony," Sesshoumaru said.

"I was under the impression he would be using Kino's children- their energy would be closest to what he was trying to free, and each controls a different element."

"The phoenix apparently killed the boys. The daughter was there, though."

"Who was air then?" Yoko looked concerned.

"Another scion, it looked like. He had a familiar scent, and a look of the miko. Unconscious, though. The ceremony was pulling all sorts of power from everything in the area."

Fukii's nimble mind made all the connections. "Shan has it. All that power had to have gone somewhere, and if the ceremony was incomplete, it would go to whoever was the nearest match. Souta fell unconscious earlier- someone had tried pulling his mind from him. If that someone had also pulled in Shan-"

"They would only have gotten pieces, since her mind was already split," Sesshoumaru continued. "That was undoubtedly the extra power behind the seals, then."

"That sort of power will crush her mind," Fukii said, wide-eyed. "No mortal- no _youkai_ even- could hope to control it."

"And you people couldn't be bothered to stop him before it came to this?" Inu-Yasha growled, disgusted. "You've signed her death warrant, you bastard."

**-- Maebashi, Japan --**

Screams woke Souta. He sat up, lifting one hand to his aching head, feeling for a bump. Not finding anything, he looked around blearily.

Bright light was all he noticed first. Strong magenta in one spot, then a plethora of others spiraling into a white beam. He realized the light was the source of the screams. Squinting, he could make out two forms in the magenta, and the spiraling light was heading in his direction. Further out, he could see Ayame, curled up into herself as far from the light as she could get. Figuring she had a reason for it, he scooted backwards, away from the beam. He hadn't gotten very far when he bumped into something soft. He turned to look, already knowing what would be there.

Mischa was curled up into herself, the white energy pulsing around her. Strange choking noises were coming from her throat- like she had completely abused her voice box and no more sound would be forthcoming.

Well, shit.

He reached a hand towards her face. Strong fingers grasped his wrist, stopping him. Souta looked up to see Ayame, a deep frown of concentration and pain on her face.

"Don't touch her. It will just pull you in as well," she explained. "I don't understand what's going on, but we need to get as far away from here as possible."

"I can't just leave her like this," he said, trying to pull out of her grip.

"Souta-kun, no mortal can hold that amount of energy without breaking. It's a miracle she's held out this long- and the amount of energy going into her is only going to grow. If we don't get away from here, she's going to take us with her when she snaps. And I've had as many brushes with death as I want for this decade."

Souta glared at his friend. "I'm not leaving her. You can't make me."

Ayame cocked her head, a sad look on her face. "So be it," she said, releasing his wrist. Her tail smacked soundly into his head, and the last thing he heard was "Sorry."

Ayame scooped the unconscious human up into a fireman's carry and backed away from the glowing woman.

"Sayonara, Meirin-san," she said. Ayame looked over at the two newcomers. She could only hope the surging power around them was enough to contain the damage. She knew none of them would survive it, no matter what happened.

Ayame limped slowly out the glade.

-----

Kagome finally managed to pull her thrashing powers into her. She hadn't taken Yoshi's warning seriously enough. She could feel small tremors running through him as she supported him.

Something deep inside her said that, had anyone else tried what he had, they would have been dead.

Yoshi extracted himself from her arms. "Apologies, Kagome-san," he said weakly. "That was even more unpleasant than expected." He turned his head sharply to stare at a prone form.

"Mischa," Kagome exclaimed, startled. She ran to kneel beside her glowing cousin, and magenta light surrounded the women, warding them from the energy storm swirling about the earth elementalist.

"Kagome," Mischa said in a hoarse, barely audible voice, eyes wide as the younger woman eased her into sitting up. "You shouldn't be here."

"Here is the only place I must be," Kagome said, smiling. "Let's see if we can't do something about all this power, ne?" She gently took hold of her cousin's wrists.

"You don't understand. It has to go somewhere," Mischa said urgently. "With the dragon's manifestation killed, it must go to the next closest match."

"You're not even youkai right now," Kagome said, frowning with concentration.

"That's the youkai half of my soul in there," the dark-eyed woman said. "Something reopened the tear, and imprisoned her in there. You can't stop my soul trying to recombine."

"Mi-chan," the miko started, confusion evident in her voice. Her wards flickered as she lost her concentration and Mischa hissed as the chain around her neck burned, overloading as it tried to suppress too much youki.

"I understand you thought the seal was necessary, but you were never in any danger. Not from her. We were split long ago, but we still recognized each other as halves of the whole and would never endanger what belonged to the other. Why do you think Chame calls me Kage? I'm only a shadow of what I should be."

Yoshi watched the exchange in silence. The information was nothing new, but hearing her try to explain who she was was rather interesting.

The magenta wards were shrinking. Even Kagome's formidable powers dimmed in the light of the energies the dragon had released. Every seal ever placed on Ryukotsusei had lost its form and joined with the powers that Mischa's youki sink had brought, as well as the powers Kino had been summoning to break the seals.

A tiny breeze flickered about him, drawing his attention to a tiny sparkle of pink. The Shikon no Tama sat ignored on the ground, barely visible through the grass. It whispered of power unimaginable. He looked away, shaken, and returned his attention to the cousins kneeling in the rubble.

The silver chain around Mischa's neck was melting as miko magic slaved to suppress the horrendous load of magical energy the energy storm had thrust into her. Kagome's head throbbed as she tightened her grip on Mischa's hands. Mischa's eyes were squeezed shut, either in pain or concentration, he wasn't certain.

The visible light of the magenta wards was almost completely gone.

The miko was losing. The sink had stolen all of Matsuro's energy, much of Kino's and Chame's, and a medley from Sesshoumaru, Hizashi, and the countless youkai she had killed in her Tokyo spree. Combined with the powers that had bound Ryukotsusei, it was only a matter of time before Kagome overextended herself and Mischa's already-fragile mind broke.

She opened her eyes. Even at this distance, he could see that her brown eyes were ringed in silver.

"You're going to have to kill me," she said bluntly to the concentrating miko seated in front of her.

"We can do this," Kagome retorted, sweat beading across her forehead.

The silver in her eyes grew more prominent. Mischa was going straight from human to youkai, the demon energy far too much to be contained in either a human or hanyou shell. And once she hit youkai, her Tokyo spree would look like a nice day at the park. And it wouldn't be just youkai she went after.

A wince of pain ran through him. Mischa was right. She had no way of releasing the energy unless she was in youkai form, and before that happened, either her mind would snap or her body would.

Her eyes flickered over Kagome's shoulder to where he stood quietly. Their gazes met, and he nodded, face impassive, shielding his thoughts, but both knew he wasn't fooling her. Silver-brown eyes moved back to meet stormy blue.

"Kill me, Kagome," she said solemnly, "before I kill you."

He spared a moment to wish she had a sense of humor and that she was telling a joke. But his serious Shan rarely saw the lighter side of things, and she was, well, _dead_ serious about the fact she would kill Kagome- and everyone else she could- if all that energy succeeded in gaining control of her body. Her split mind had kept her demon blood from driving her completely crazy, but millennia of power was trying to merge with her, and even the borderline insanity of her alter ego was still far too sane to be able to handle the power. Once it gained control- and it would- there was no telling how much destruction she could cause before a taiyoukai or miko succeeded in killing her. If they even could.

And the only miko powerful enough to stop her was currently doing everything she could to keep from having to face that outcome.

"You wouldn't," Kagome said. He wished he could see her face, but he could tell even from behind that she wasn't certain. She knew what the silver meant, but didn't seem to be able to work up the courage to do the only thing anyone could do about it.

"I won't have a choice," the woman replied. She grimaced as Kagome's strengthening emotions distracted her from focusing her powers on suppressing the demon energy trying to force itself into the older girl's form. Mischa's eyes were almost completely silver and twin jagged stripes were forming across her cheeks.

Pain lanced through him as he realized the miko wouldn't be able to kill her. Kagome was too young to be able to close off her emotions to do what had to be done.

He wished he had never moved back to Japan. Things had been so much simpler in the monastery in China. But with the Communists eradicating all traces of religion in the country, he hadn't had much of a choice, not with Yoko already strongly suggesting he take up residence in his homeland once again.

No wonder the old kitsune had told him not to get too attached to the people he met. Even in human form, he still had youkai youth and immortality. He had thought she would be safe, being hanyou like him. But he hadn't thought about outside influence.

_("So young to have to do such a terrible thing to the one you love.")_

The woman had known even before her daughter's birth how her daughter would die. She had tried to warn him, but he had never connected her words with Mischa, even after she had accepted him.

Heart breaking, he summoned the winds. They whirled about him with hurricane force, steadily slimming down into narrow, sharp threads of death. And master that he was, even weak as he currently was, hitting one woman and missing the other was far too easy.

Mischa met his gaze boldly, brown fighting silver for control. Kagome was too focused on trying to do the impossible to notice the power rising behind her, but Mischa had given in to the inevitable long ago. The smile that lit her face as the winds stopped circling him and raced towards her was painful in its sheer joy.

He had never been enough to make her wanto to live. No one was.

Kagome stiffened as she finally noticed the magic, but it was too late. Mischa's body jerked as sharp winds sliced cleanly through her body. She was dead before her body collapsed into Kagome's arms.

He bowed his head in grief as the area exploded in an energy storm, the excess powers still searching for someplace to go.

**--Niigata, Japan --**

Hizashi appeared in a burst of hot red flames beside the kitsune.

"There is nothing we can do now," Yoko said to the enraged hanyou. "Something far greater than us is at work here, and interrupting it would only kill us as well."

"It has begun," the firebird said. "I had hoped forcing him to use others would lessen the damage, but it appears I have made things worse."

"What was the meaning in participating in the ceremony?" Sesshoumaru asked. The others' heads snapped to stare at the four-winged woman.

"My humblest apologies, Sesshoumaru-sama, but I had hoped to manipulate the energies Kino was calling upon. As a descendent of Suzaku, I would not have been bothered by having to control so much energy. I did not consider the fact part of the hanyou's soul had been bound into the working earlier."

A great burst of energy exploded far to the south. The three elder taiyoukai looked solemn.

"The sacrifice has been made," Yoko said softly. "But will it be enough?"

"What in the nine fucking hells could need that much power?" Inu-Yasha swore.

"Why," Fukii said slowly, trying to draw connections, "would a dragon need the Shikon no Tama to release his seal? There are more stable forms of magic to call upon, even if they are less powerful. Not to mention using a holy object on youkai workings isn't the safest thing to do."

Yoko glanced slyly over at the tiny redhead. They were going to have their hands full with this one, once she came into her power. "Now that question, wolf, should have been the first Ryukotsusei asked himself. I'd wondered when anybody else was going to notice that."

"The jewel isn't just holy magic," Inu-Yasha argued. "It was made up of youkai as well."

The kitsune shook his head. "No, the Shikon no Tama is far older than that. Midoriko merely gave it form. She had always held the power within her. Why do you think she was such a potent miko?"

"How the fuck can something exist if it doesn't have a form?"

"As the body houses the soul of course," Sesshoumaru said. "Really, little brother, I had expected better of you."

"Oi," Inu-Yasha said, whirling on the older demon.

"Then whose soul is caged within the Shikon no Tama?" Fukii asked shrewdly, interrupting the fight Inu-Yasha was trying to pick.

"That remains a mystery," Yoko said with a concerned look. "It dates back to my childhood, and my years are too plentiful to remember everything."

"We know it is divine in nature," Hizashi said. "Youkai were to the gods as humans are to we youkai. And nothing so powerful dating from then could be of youkai make."

"If you think about it, there's only one thing it could be," Fukii said, her eyes narrowed southwards. "Someone divine, someone draconic, and someone either dead or missing."

"Ryujin," Sesshoumaru said in understanding, staring at the young redhead. Something else spoke through her- Tsukikage had mentioned her granddaughter was bright, but leaping to conclusions like this was something the taiyoukai had seen only in seers and prophets, and the wolf decidedly wasn't one.

"The Dragon Emperor of the Heavens? You've got to be shitting me. No way could something that little contain the him."

**-- Maebashi, Japan --**

Magenta shields sprang around Kagome as energy exploded from the woman in her arms. Through magenta-hued light, she could see it rebound off the air master she had turned her head to stare at and he fell to his knees, head bowed low with pain. Vaguely she noticed his silver earrings falling to the ground, and red streaking through his brown hair.

And just as suddenly as the storm had started, it disappeared into the grass. Faintly, Kagome could make out a pink glow where the energy had gone. She let her shield drop.

The Shikon no Tama. Her family's heritage and its curse.

Hatred burned through her veins.

Gently, she set her cousin down. Her eyes stung, and she wiped one trembling hand across them, rubbing away the salty tears. She stood and paced towards the seemingly innocent jewel and picked it up, studying its shimmer.

This was what the fuss was about? This stupid little pink ball that could hold endless amounts of energy without being destroyed? What was the point of this obsession? Who had the appalling arrogance to believe they could control that amount of power?

"I hate you so much," she said. "Anybody with any common sense would know you're worthless. They don't control you, you control them. What did my family ever do to you? What did my friends ever do to you? They sacrificed so much. And for what? A continuous loop of pain, lifetimes of it."

Anguish ripped through her. How many had died because of this insignificant bauble? Mischa. Matsuro. Three-quarters of Tokyo demolished. The Niigata wolves. Mikomi.

She clenched her hand around the jewel.

"I'm no better," she whispered in a choked voice. "I keep trying to fix things, and I only make it worse."

She could remember the last time she held it like this. Everyone had been dead then, too. Inu-Yasha. Sango. Miroku. Shippo. Kouga. Even Kikyou.

What had any of them done to deserve their fates? What was so important about the jewel that it had to hurt everyone who came into contact with it?

"I hate you," she repeated. "I hate you. You're evil. You just keep making our lives more and more miserable. It's never enough for you. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. I wish," she choked, made a broken sobbing sound. The one thing she couldn't do, the presence had warned her.

"Gods, I wish," she said quieter. "But you're just waiting for that, aren't you? Another wish, another chance to break us again. Sango-chan's soul is completely gone. I can't sense her. I don't think Mischa will be back either. One too many scarred lives. Well that's not going to happen again. I had the right idea last time. I just went about it the wrong way."

Purely magenta light surrounded her. Gone was the pink of her miko powers. She had sensed it last time around, in the Sengoku Jidai, but hadn't understood what it meant. Now, though, she knew what it was.

"No more wishes," she said in a low, angry voice. "No more selfish requests for power, for revenge, for greed, not even for peace of mind." There was no such thing as a selfless wish, she knew. How many times had she lived this moment, searching her mind for something to ease the pain she felt, the pain the Shikon no Tama radiated?

She threw the jewel with all her strength away from her. Magenta energy snapped whip-like towards it. Descendants of the creator of the Shikon no Tama, supposedly. Kagome knew better now. Midoriko had been like her, simply keeping the jewel inside her body. Who knew how the jewel had come into physical existence; but that existence was peripheral to the true Shikon no Tama.

She had broken the jewel physically in Sengoku Jidai. Its power had remained in its physical shards, divided among them. This time, she would break it completely- destroy the energy itself. No one else would ever lust after the whispers of power it seduced with. No one else would die for it.

The magenta energy was the key to the lock of the Shikon no Tama.

The jewel shattered and power once again ripped through the broken glade.

In a silent shrine in Tokyo, Goshinboku, the God Tree, cracked.

The world lurched.


End file.
